Ransom
by 01cheers
Summary: For once, I abandon Guy and Meg, and pair the handsome anti-hero with Marian. What happens if she escapes with Allan in 2x12, and Guy becomes Sheriff for more than a day?
1. Chapter 1

A/N

It has been a long time since I eagerly shipped Guy and Marian, though the brilliant fics that have been and are being written take me back to those days. But an exchange of comments made me come up with a stubborn plot idea that I could not shake out of my brain. The result, or the first half of it, is below. I hope to finish the second half in a couple of weeks.

It is set in an AU where the plot branches off in 212 with Marian escaping alongside Allan. Some s3 events are still supposed to take place, namely, John coming to Nottingham, Guy killing Vasey and briefly becoming Sheriff before turning on John. However, there are differences:

- obviously, Marian survives past the events of s2;  
- Isabella does not appear (sorry, Bella fans, I could not think of a way of writing her into this!)  
- nor does my beloved Meg (since this time I committed to a Guy/Marian plot);  
- when Vasey dies, he stays dead.

The biggest change from the show was my attempt to stick to historical facts. To say that it was a headache is an understatement. To sum up, Richard was released on Feb 4 1194 and was in England from March 13th to May 12th 1194, and successfully besieged Nottingham Castle in late March to smoke out John's supporters, after which he raised tax money and left on a campaign against Philippe II that ultimately cost him his life. John, who was only 27 at the time (OK, I can *just* buy Toby being 27 ;) ) - Richard I was 36, same as RA!Guy - fled to Normandy but Richard saw him there in late May and pardoned him. John lost most of his titles and possessions, but got some of them back in 1195.

I tried to find where John was between June 1194 (after Evreux) and April 1999 (Richard's death), and ran into a complete absence of facts (in online sources at least). Eventually I decided that this gave me the right to invent what suited my plot, so in my version, John is in England for a few months from early through late 1195, though I suspect that in reality he was in Normandy. As for the rest, I mostly stuck to the show's characters and historical figures and tried not to distort real events _too_ much.

If you feel like commenting, I will be glad to hear from you. And I know about the screwed up dialogue punctuation. Sorry, bad habit.

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Rats scurried through the rotten straw, and Marian shivered and squinted at the strip of dull grey light seeping through the slit overhead. Her thin woollen dress, now crumpled and soiled, offered little protection against the damp cold of the dungeon that had instilled itself in her very bones.

_It won't be long now_, she thought. _By noon I shall be dead_.

The priest had visited her before nightfall, hearing her confession and giving her last rites. Anytime now the guards would arrive at her cell to take her to the execution block.

At least, as a noblewoman, she was entitled to the axe instead of a rope.

She leaned against the cold, slippery stone and closed her eyes again.

It was not supposed to end like this.

*

The first weeks of living in the middle of the forest after they had cheated death at the hands of the Celts had been exhilarating. She had thanked the patron saints that had let her join Allan in their escape from the ill-fated expedition to the Holy Land. What the camp lacked in comfort it made up for in camaraderie and the thrill of daring exploits. What cachet Marian may have lost as a reluctant lady of a castle she more than regained as the lady who ruled the outlaw leader's heart. Those weeks were, figuratively speaking, her and Robin's honeymoon. Camp life had no place for privacy, and even though she occasionally felt frisky and gave in to Robin's amorous advances, their escapades never went beyond hurried kissing sessions in the underbrush and letting their hands roam each other's bodies in the dusk of the dying campfire. There would be time for more, but now that they were free and together there was no need for urgency. It would wait until the wedding night. Until the king had returned.

But weeks went by and turned into months, and the wedding bells were silent as Richard languished in an Austrian dungeon. By Christmas the outlaws had heard that Vasey and his lieutenant had been shipwrecked off the Portuguese coast en route to Acre and, having reached the shore by a mere miracle, were forced to return to England penniless and defeated at the very start of their enterprise. Where three months earlier Marian had been happy in equal measure to be away from both men, her jailers, tormentors, and political opponents, she now found herself rejoicing at the news of Guy's survival and regretting Vasey's. Now that the novelty of Robin's constant company had worn off, her thoughts stole with an alarming frequency to her leather-clad nemesis, and she chose not to think whether it had had anything to do with her subdued fervour for Robin's affections. Surely she could not possibly miss Guy! But she did, and denying it did not make the nagging feeling go away.

February finally brought with it the rumours of King Richard's release from captivity, and in the frenzied weeks that followed, as the king's supporters hunkered down and prayed for his safety, his opponents scrambled, depending on their propensity for recklessness, either to cover up their tracks or to make a last-ditch attempt to rally against him. Getting news of Richard's impending arrival had been a joyous occasion in Sherwood, with Robin transformed overnight from a hated outlaw into the local _cause celebre_, but it was not long before the gang began to drift apart. Robin, Marian, and Much hurried to London to wait for the king's triumphant return, while the others, unsure whether the king would be as quick to forgive their past misdeeds as he was sure to embrace his nobleman champion, stayed in the forest until things settled down.

In the midst of all the confusion, Richard's irresponsible brother, the spendthrift Prince John, deigned Nottingham worthy of his visit. The aim was, of course, to garner support and collect money, which in John's book amounted to the same thing. He was met by an obsequious and rather worried Sheriff Vasey and a very charming but consistently unlucky Guy of Gisborne who both assured John of their loyalty and rushed headlong to follow his taunts that pitched them against one another in a mortal struggle. Vasey seemed the shrewder one, able to see the cruel amusement behind John's earnest speeches, but ultimately he was the one to fall, struck down by his lieutenant who was tired of being kicked.

John took it in good humour, congratulating Guy on his accomplishment and even appointing him Sheriff. But within a week a bitter squabble brought the promotion to an abrupt end, and after sabotaging John's rash attempt at a coronation Guy ended up a wanted man, forced into an uneasy truce with the forest gang, while William Brewer took the Sheriff's office instead. However, Richard's subsequent arrival, followed by a quick progress through England and a siege in late March of Nottingham Castle that had become the last stronghold of John's supporters, unseated Brewer in turn and, most unexpectedly, brought back Guy as a reward for his fortuitous change of loyalties and his resulting prominent role in the siege. To everyone's surprise and the peasants' infinite chagrin, it looked like Sheriff Gisborne was there to stay after all.

Marian, travelling with the king's slow train while Richard and Robin and the other nobles had hurried ahead to lay siege, eagerly listened to updates from monks who had travelled back from the vanguard party to fetch medical supplies. She was alternately elated to see Robin's beloved patron back and John defeated, and worried for Guy and glad to see his ambitions fulfilled, try as she might to hide the latter thought from her betrothed when they finally reunited in Leicester. Marian met with the victorious besieging party there before she could set foot in Nottingham, and Robin grudgingly acknowledged that Gisborne had fought bravely by their side and had proved a valuable asset thanks to his knowledge of the castle, but was unwilling to expand the subject, leaving it to Marian to quietly find out the details.

Strangely, her wedding to Robin had not taken place upon the king's return. Richard was preoccupied with affairs of state, and Robin equally preoccupied with working his way back into the king's good graces and inner circle, so that Marian was swept aside. For the moment, she told herself. For the moment, Robin assured her. But once more, time went by as Richard juggled audiences and banquets and Robin hung onto his every word, and Marian waited and fretted and felt less and less useful by the day. The week of Richard's siege of Nottingham was followed by six more weeks of journeying around England, first south through Leicester and Oxford to Winchester for a 'wearing of the crown' ceremony in mid-April that looked, for all intents and purposes, like a second coronation, then back north to York for a royal council meant to raise more taxes, then finally to London, as Robin followed his sovereign and Marian tagged along, although it seemed increasingly as if Robin did not notice her anymore. So when, avoiding her eyes and smiling apologetically, he made a stammering announcement in early May that he was going with Richard to France in a week's time, she was neither sad nor surprised nor angered, just tired. It will only be for a few months, my love, Robin had implored her, we need to show that arrogant Philippe Auguste who rules the Angevin lands and then we shall come back, or you will join us there, and the king shall marry us. _We. The King and I_. Instead of being placated, Marian was stung by these reassurances. It seemed that the fact of the king performing the ceremony mattered more to her betrothed than the woman he was marrying.

Then they were gone. The ever-loyal Much had gone along with Robin. Will and Djaq, by then all but officially married – _who would have thought they would beat us to it_ – had moved to York where the trade was better and Will could make a living with his carpentry as Djaq practiced as a healer. John stayed around but gave up on outlaw life after finding a caring woman among the villagers and settling down. After some soul-searching and considerable daydreaming, Allan plucked up the courage to present himself at Nottingham Castle and, to everyone's amazement including his own, was admitted back in the Sheriff's good graces and made master-at-arms. Archer, Robin's and Guy's newly discovered young half-brother, had followed King Richard and Robin to France in search of adventure and profit. The old life as she had known it was over.

Upon Robin's insistence, Marian took up residence at Ripley Convent when she came back in July after seeing Robin off at Portsmouth. It was understood that there was to be a donation that would pay for her board and bed (and the king had magnanimously supplied it), and she would stay until Robin returned or summoned her to France. At first Marian felt as if a set of steel claws had raked at her heart, but as the days went by and the year wound down, she realised, in her solitary rides in the crisp autumn air, that it had less to do with missing Robin than with feeling betrayed by him. _He chose the king over me_, she sighed in resignation. She had been a fool to have ever believed it possible that Robin could have chosen otherwise.

A month before Christmas, the summons arrived.

A guard clad in the Sheriff's livery rode to the convent, causing a minor uproar among the nuns who were unused to such disturbances, and demanded to see the Lady Marian of Knighton. As a laywoman who was by then of age, Marian did not need the Abbess's permission to speak to the guard, or to read the document addressed to her in private, or, for that matter, to depart for Nottingham two days later, unescorted save for the coachman. The letter seemed purely official business: in curt impersonal language, Marian was informed that her presence was required at the Council of Nobles meeting that was to convene in Nottingham three days thence. She had briefly pondered whether this could be a ruse to imprison her, but quickly dismissed it. If Guy had wanted _that_, he would have tried or done it already, and would have chosen a far less public venue. After all, checking with any neighbouring landholder to ascertain that the Council meeting was real was an easy matter. But whatever the purpose of the summons, Marian was too well aware that her knees had gone weak once she had read through the parchment. And whatever the reason, be it tricky weather or her recent lack of practice with fine attire, she had spent the entire evening prior to departure trying on all the dresses she had and peering at herself in the polished silver tray that she had pilfered from the vestry for temporary use as a mirror, trying to imagine what sort of impression she would make upon her entrance to the Great Hall.

The meetings as she remembered them under Vasey's rule had been mundane and even irksome, invariably tedious and frustrating occurrences where Vasey tried hard to outdo himself at casual cruelty, his lieutenant glared morosely from behind his back, and the cowed nobles bleated their weak objections or nodded their terrified agreement. Marian accompanied her father to keep track of affairs but found the meetings more akin to torture sessions to endure than grand occasions to look forward to. So why was she so fastidious about her dress now? Why was her heart racing in anticipation and her breath catching as she imagined herself walking down the familiar stairs…

…before his eyes?

Therein lay the answer, though for a while she had stoically refused to admit it. She was at once thrilled and anxious at the prospect of seeing Guy again for the first time in almost a year, and it had nothing to do with politics.

*

The carriage bumped and lurched on the uneven muddy road to Nottingham, and Marian, bundled up in a fur-lined cloak, tried in vain to doze to make up for lack of sleep the night before. She had gone to bed early but had spent most of the night tossing and turning, and got up before sunrise more tired than she had been in the evening.

They had not seen a glimpse of each other in months, and had not spoken for more than a year. Her escape on the eve of the voyage had planted her firmly in outlaw territory, and while Marian tried to make sense of her increasingly conflicted feelings in the middle of the forest, Guy seemed to have finally accepted where Marian's loyalties lay and, in his bitter resentment, seemed to have put her out of his mind altogether even as his pursuit of Robin Hood had continued. Then again, it was difficult to know what was on the man's mind; what news had filtered from the castle to Sherwood early in the year when he and Vasey came back had made it appear that his usually difficult temper was worse than ever, he hardly spoke a word in days, and had become disobedient and rude to Vasey, who he must have blamed for the misguided idea of the Holy Land voyage. Even chasing outlaws did not seem to interest him as much anymore.

Then Vasey was dead and Guy took his place with Richard's blessing, and things seemed to change.

The new Sheriff had been painted as the very devil before his hand had touched the castle keys, but subsequent months went a long way towards dispelling that notion. True, he was still gloomy and withdrawn most of the time; castle guards were subjected to constant drills and munitions inspections; and his famously low growling voice was heard all too often berating his unlucky subordinates. But left to his own devices, he showed a good deal of dedication to his post but little if any of Vasey's wanton cruelty and unstoppable bloodlust. In time townsfolk and peasants learned, to their endless bewilderment, that Sheriff Gisborne was not in the habit of randomly killing people of his own accord. In the months that followed his appointment, four men were hanged for murder and a couple of dozen were flogged for theft and other minor offences, while a handful of bad debtors had had to dwell in the dungeon while their families scraped together the silver to repay the debts, but even a harsh and prejudiced eye would find little in those punishments that was out of proportion to the crimes committed, or out of line with the laws of the day. Taxes were relentlessly collected but not raised above the preceding year's rates; city walls were finally patched up to stop stones from crumbling from atop the battlements; and the fear that Gisborne's tenure would be a bloody reign of terror and torture had spectacularly failed to materialise.

Marian kept track of these developments as the year went on; having been in an outlaw gang whose success had depended on gathering gossip had made it easy even while she was on the road with Robin. As she followed Guy's steps and missteps through the tasks of running city and shire, she was at first reluctantly, then enthusiastically willing to admit that the new Sheriff was not only an immense improvement on his predecessor, but someone even her father might not have entirely disapproved of.

As time went by, Marian gradually had to admit that her interest in Guy's affairs went a good deal beyond his duties of office. She caught herself trying to remember his voice. His face, as he watched her, talked to her, smiled at meeting her eyes, and above all, as he dashed back into the castle to defend it – defend _her_ – against an approaching army, haunted her dreams and left her empty when she woke up. When she saw horsemen galloping through the forest – even when she saw the liveried guards – her heart skipped a beat at the mere thought of Guy being among the riders. Try as she might to deny it, she had become more attached to him during her sojourn in Nottingham than had been proper for a young lady betrothed to another. She missed him, and the thought of him being so close and yet beyond her reach was becoming her constant torment.

After Richard's return, while Marian waited for the matter of her Knighton inheritance to be settled – it had been requisitioned by Vasey but she had hoped to get at least part of it back - she was invited into the king's retinue alongside Robin. She half hoped to see Guy at the royal council in York, but any hope was quickly banished as she soon learned that the man had thought it prudent, perhaps wisely, to stay behind in Nottingham, sending the tax chests in his stead. He had spent a long evening in a one-on-one audience with the king upon his reappointment, but had then promptly busied himself once more with running his shire and sorting out affairs at Clifton, the modest landholding near Nottingham that he had been given instead of Locksley, which he had had to surrender to its owner. Robin and Marian had followed Richard out of York on his tour of the country, but when Robin was gone, Marian found herself back in Nottinghamshire, in the sleepy convent, and after the giddy whirlwind of Richard' return and fuss and pageantry of the impromptu royal court, the quiet and solitude was overbearing. And Guy was as present in her thoughts, and as unattainable in reality, as ever.

Except that now he had asked to see her.

Marian wrapped the cloak tighter around her shoulders and peered out of the carriage. The scenery had been much the same throughout her journey – meadows with dried grass touched with frost and patches of snow, dotted with oak trees, interspersed with tracts of forest and enlivened by the occasional dilapidated village – but now the meadows and even the trees looked familiar, and when her eyes caught the leaning silhouette of the old Nettlestone chapel, she knew that she had arrived.

Less than an hour later, Marian stepped out into the grey courtyard of Nottingham castle. She had never liked the place; even as a child when her father was Sheriff, the castle had seemed forbidding and inhospitable where Knighton Hall was cosy and welcoming and the forest exciting and full of promise. But now she looked at the worn stairs, the balcony next to the entryway, the turret window of the room that had been hers, and despite the heartbreak, fear and danger that she had faced in the castle in the months she had spent there, she could almost say she had missed it. _No_, she corrected herself, _not the place. The memories_. And the elusive but enduring inkling of what might have been.

It seemed that she had arrived slightly late as the courtyard was full of carriages but nearly empty of people, and Marian hurried up the stone steps, her legs unusually stiff and her thoughts embarrassingly muddled. She turned a corner and passed the narrow gallery – and almost too soon, she was at the top of the stairway at the end of the great hall, taking in the gathering.

Or rather, staring transfixed at the man who presided over it.

*

For a few moments, all she could hear was her heart thumping, seemingly, right inside her head. The long, dark, spacious hall had wrapped itself around the high-backed chair in the middle of the dais at its other end. Vasey had always seemed an oddity in it, an evil puppet perched crouching in the throne-like seat, hands writhing on the armrests as he spewed his twisted ideas. Guy, sprawling regally as he surveyed the assembly and listened half-heartedly to Lord de Saye relating the somewhat exaggerated tale of a disastrous fire that had destroyed two barns and a potter's shop in the village of Wysall that belonged to his estate, seemed more imposing than King Richard himself.

He looked different from the picture in her memory, and it took her a few moments to pick out the obvious changes. The promotion, or else a close acquaintance with Prince John's fashionable court, must have enticed him to alter his look. His well-made but utilitarian leather armour had been replaced by a jerkin of expensive tooled leather studded with spikes and eyelets and a pair of sleek velvet trousers with leather patches, and he sported a pair of soft-yet-shiny new boots of what looked like Spanish craftsmanship. His hair, too, was longer than she had remembered seeing it, sweeping his shoulders instead of brushing the nape of his neck. He looked proud, composed, commanding; there was no trace either of the barely suppressed anger or of the vicious amusement that had so often marred his features in Vasey's company, but Marian could not help noticing that he also looked tired and somewhat preoccupied, and a touch older. Was the office taking its toll?

But all that was registering at the back of her mind, as her only conscious thoughts were, _I have finally seen him again. And dear Lord, why is he even more handsome than I remembered? And why did I put on the olive gown and not the red one? And how in heaven's name am I going to walk down these stairs without tripping?_

Then he raised his head and noticed her, and time stopped.

Those eyes. She had seen them on so many different days, in a multitude of expressions from the heights of anger to the depths of tenderness, but they had never ceased to surprise her. _She is stirred by me_, he had once boasted behind her back, a taunt that Robin had pointedly repeated to her... more than once. Looking into his eyes now, she could not even begin to try arguing against that. And for the moment, as he stared at her as if the room and the castle and the entire town did not exist, he seemed equally stirred by her. _Still._ She smiled at him, in an unguarded mixture of greeting, relief, and quiet triumph at having retained some of the power over him.

And at that instant, the daydream shattered.

It was as if he had recovered from a momentary loss of memory and was immediately reminded of everything that had passed a year earlier, everything that had made him resent her. His face froze and his gaze grew hard and cold and hurt and profoundly distrustful. She remembered him looking at her like that, once or twice. When he had demanded to see the silver necklace as proof of her innocence. When he had set the burning torch to her father's manor.

When he had told her that she was nothing to him.

- Welcome to the Council of Nobles, my lady, - he said in a tone that was anything but welcoming. – I thank you for having taken the time to make the journey. There is a matter that directly concerns you and thus has made your presence today necessary, - he continued icily, emphasising the word _today_ to make it clear that Marian's presence on any other occasion was uncalled for.

She took a few steps down the stairway, her knees refusing to bend and her knuckles white as she clutched at the banister to steady herself. Had it not been for a dozen pairs of eyes watching her, she would have stayed still for a while until she had regained at least a semblance of composure, but under the circumstances, forcing herself to walk was better than forcing herself to speak. That would have been a guaranteed way to make a mockery of herself.

When she had stumbled to the bottom of the stairs and could delay it no longer, she blurted out,

- Sir Guy, I am grateful for the invitation. It was no trouble at all.

It was true. And despite her best efforts to appear calm, she had been unable to hide the undertone of desperation from her voice, though she saw his face stiffen even further at being called _Sir Guy, _as if that address had been inappropriately informal. _What does he expect me to call him_, she wondered forlornly, _Lord Sheriff?_

But as she awkwardly took her seat at one end of the loose semicircle facing the dais, she reflected that he was not being all that unreasonable after all. How many times had she used their familiarity as a way to wrap Guy's will around her finger? How many times had her earnest entreaties hidden another agenda? Had she not encouraged his advances one day only to spurn them the next? Had she not promised him to stay by his side and refrain from stirring up trouble, only to break both promises mere days later? She had lied to him, mocked him, used him.

Betrayed him.

She had indeed lost the right to call Guy by his name, but back then it had not occurred to her how badly she might want that right some day. And now that they were nothing to each other but the Lady of Knighton and Sheriff Gisborne, she gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut against the thought that they would never be Guy and Marian anymore.

This meeting had turned out to be the worst torture session that eclipsed anything that Vasey's depravity had cooked up. Usually, Marian had been a vocal participant in these gatherings, defying rule and custom alike to state her opinions. This time, it took all her willpower to stop herself from crying as she sat silently, her fingers worrying the fabric of her gown.

She yearned for the meeting to be over so that she could be away from the public eye and could try to speak to Guy alone, and yet she dreaded his likely reaction so much that she almost wished it would instead run for hours just to give her a chance to steal a few more glances at Guy with impunity. Then again, that was a torment in itself as she fixed her eyes on his handsome face and graceful frame and thought for the hundredth time that she could not have him - the man who had once begged her on his knees to marry him.

In the end, she was relieved when the matter that had required her attendance came up.

- My lords, now that we have gone through the tax collection roster and settled the matter of rebuilding after the Wysall fire, there is an issue that concerns the Lady Marian of Knighton that both she and you need to be aware of, - he spoke as if Marian were not in the room. - As you may know, the lady is heir to the Knighton estate that was taken into the previous Sheriff's stewardship two years ago, - she noted that he avoided using Vasey's name. - I spoke to His Highness King Richard when he visited York and he expressed the desire to have it returned to the lady, and had intended to draw up a royal edict to that effect, but was pre-empted from doing so. Nonetheless, given his express intention, I am hereby restoring the estate to Her Ladyship, with this past Michaelmas as the effective date and the past two months' rents due to her, - he picked a rolled-up deed from the stack before him and held it out to Marian who had staggered to retrieve it, - so that she may be free to dispose with the land and any rents that it may provide, subject to paying taxes to the shire. However, since the manor had been destroyed earlier, - he looked down but kept his voice steady, - and since the Knighton rents for the past year have been appropriated by the Sheriff in their entirety, Her Ladyship is, by way of compensation, exempted from paying taxes for a full year, until next Michaelmas.

The announcement was met with silence and a few approving nods and curious glances in Marian's direction. Overwhelmed with gratitude and thrilled at the prospect of having her estate and her freedom again, she was nonetheless inexplicably frustrated. Part of that, she knew, came from rankling at King Richard's forgetfulness. Yet an even greater part came from the deliberate manner in which Guy had made the announcement. By bringing it up as an official matter at the council meeting, and never addressing her directly, he had not even given her the opportunity to properly thank him for what had, after all, been made possible as much by his goodwill as by the king's disposition. And Marian felt stubbornly, irrationally offended by it. He did not even want her to acknowledge his good deed as much as it deserved to be.

Still, she did her best.

- I am profoundly thankful to you, my lord, - she had made the address sound as official as her unsteady voice would permit, - for giving Knighton back to me, and... for making it possible for me to quickly rebuild the manor using the rents. It will make an immeasurable difference in my life, and I shall always remember your actions with gratitude.

_Not only giving Knighton back to me_, she thought, _but all the other gestures I never thanked you for while I had the chance. Or thanked you grudgingly, or with mock sincerity when I hardly meant it. _His many gifts, though awkwardly given. His constant concern for her safety. His quiet attempts to ease her father's plight while he was imprisoned in the castle. Too many little things to remember.

- My lady. – he inclined his head and went on to announce the next issue, and even though the acknowledgement had been minimal, Marian was at least pleased that he had not dismissed her response altogether.

She paid little attention during the remainder of the meeting. Encouraged by Guy having apparently relented on her somewhat, she once again rallied her resolve and gathered her wandering thoughts to try and think of a way to get his attention after the meeting, and was bitterly disappointed when at its conclusion, Guy got up abruptly and bid everyone a curt farewell before sauntering up the stairs. She watched him, her hands clenched into anxious fists, resisting the urge to run after him. But as the lords filed out of the room, bowing to her as she passed, she was struck by an idea.

She knew the castle inside and out, probably as well as Guy himself. And as a noble lady well known in the castle and no longer an outlaw, she should not expect any opposition from the guards; surely she could talk her way around them with a convenient pretext of having suddenly remembered an important matter to discuss with the Sheriff? What, then, was stopping her from staying a little longer and seeking him out? So she set out along the gallery that ran the length of the keep wall towards what had been Vasey's study and, with any luck, had become Guy's.

In that, at least, she was not disappointed. As the rounded the corner into the inner corridor, she saw Guy walking purposely toward the study door, still carrying the scrolls. He fumbled with the key just outside, trying not to drop the documents, when Marian's approach made him instantly straighten up as the scrolls tumbled to the floor.

She rushed to help him pick them up but he had been quicker, hastily grabbing the rolls of parchment and standing up to face her with the same stony expression that he had used on her for most of the meeting. He almost took a step back before checking himself.

- My lady?

- Guy… - she began weakly and instantly regretted it as the displeasure made itself evident in his face. – My lord, - she tried again, - I know I have said this already but I wanted to thank you again for… correcting the king's omission in giving me Knighton. And I wanted to say, - she continued hastily as Guy looked at her impatiently, - that I would be happy to attend the Council meetings in the future. I shall seek to limit my comments to matters I am familiar with, but given my knowledge of my father's duties, I might hope to be of use.

She was clutching at straws. She had never expected herself to essentially promise to keep her mouth shut, but neither had she been prepared to accept that things had come to _this_ between her and Guy, to formal words and cold exchanges, and she had never given a thought to the possibility that she might not be welcome in his presence.

Yet she was promptly reminded of it.

- That will not be necessary, - he said calmly but sternly, - my lady. The majority of matters are highly routine. You are exempt from taxes for most of the coming year so that tax collection will be of little concern to you for a while. If there is a need for your presence I shall be certain to make it known to you. In the meantime, you may pick up the Knighton accounts and the past two months' rents from Allan-a-Dale whenever it suits you. Good day, my lady.

He opened the door, bowed to her, and was gone.

Her fists clenched once more, Marian banged one of them on her thigh in frustration as she hurried back to the castle entrance, trying desperately to keep a calm appearance. No use; she had barely made it to the end of the corridor before sinking to the floor just past the corner and burying her face in her hands amid helpless sobbing.

*

She came back to the castle the following morning to find Allan, having spent the night at an inn, and was surprised at how awkward even that meeting turned out to be. Pleased as he was to see her at first, Allan was clearly uncomfortable and for once unsure about how he should behave with someone who had witnessed his loyalties waver between Robin and Guy and who had been alternately betrothed to both men herself, now that his current patron was _not _her betrothed and was moreover keen to keep her out of his mind. After mumbling a couple of questions about her well-being, life at Ripley, and news from Robin, Allan handed her the Knighton treasury, a rather grand name for the modest chest covered in scuffs and scratches, the iron strips along its ridges edged with rust. Nonetheless, the chest was almost full, the two months' rents Guy had promised giving her enough silver to purchase logs and hire workmen to rebuild the manor.

- So, er, take care of yourself, Marian, - he tried to force a smile that came out crooked.

- You too, Allan, - she said, smiling sadly back at him, - be sure to come and visit me at Knighton!

- Oh, I will, I will! – he said, nodding just a touch too enthusiastically, and Marian knew that he would do no such thing.

Thus she returned to Ripley a richer woman and once more a landowner, but even lonelier than before. She spent Christmas drained and forlorn, longing for a distraction from the humiliating disappointment she had suffered at Nottingham castle, and as soon as the festivities were over she threw herself whole-heartedly into Knighton's affairs. Winter was far from the best time of year for construction, but fortunately for her, the cold spell stopped early and the ground thawed but stayed mostly dry, and she managed to secure a stock of seasoned logs from a woodcutter in nearby Barton, outbidding Lord de Saye who seemed rather put out when he realised that the rebuilding of his barn would have to wait. She left the convent and, taking advantage of the local bailiff's hospitality until her manor was finished, spent long days in and around Knighton, bargaining for wood and stone and nails, arguing with the surly stonemason's apprentice and instructing the carpenters and picking the wares at the weaver's shop to build and furnish the new hall – and while often tired and occasionally exasperated, she was almost happy. She had helped draw the plans and done her best to recreate her old home as closely as was practicable, and watching the building go up and take shape filled her heart with joy.

It also helped to keep Guy off her mind. After the heartbreak of their encounter, she was initially even more determined to try and win him back as his image dwelled fresh and clear in her memory. But gradually she was able to bring her emotions under control and, forcing herself to assume that she would never see the man again – an assumption that was not entirely realistic and initially quite distressing but ultimately calming in its finality – went on to remind herself of all Guy's faults and the wrongs he had committed, and was pleased when it worked, to an extent at least. She even tried to direct her thoughts to imagining a happy life with Robin after their eventual wedding, but somehow the picture failed to coalesce and somehow King Richard was always part of it. Robin had written to her three or four times in the preceding months, relating their campaigns and politicking, and though the usual dose of _I-miss-you'_s and _my-love's_ had been there, and she had replied in kind, she almost wondered if by then they were merely carrying on a prolonged charade.

By Easter the manor was finished and furnished, and she cheerfully moved in and put together a village feast for the Knighton peasants, but when the excitement wore off and the routine set in, things began to look drearier than ever. Day after day went by, and there was no grand cause to fight for, no adversaries to outwit, no Robin to make fiery, infectious speeches about politics and justice and no Guy to keep her on her toes and, frankly, to let her feast her eyes on. Nothing, just the small chores that ground down her patience. The peasants were happy under her stewardship, the neighbours were mostly in their fifties and uniformly boring regardless of age, and whatever dastardly schemes might be brewing at Windsor where Prince John, forgiven by his brother but stripped of the majority of his titles and possessions, held a semblance of a court-in-exile, she was not privy to them. What was she supposed to do, embroidery?

She grew restless. She rode out of Knighton every day and gazed across the fields to the grey bulk of Nottingham castle in the distance, and let her horse pick its way along the meandering forest paths, smiling at the memories of infatuation and adventure that lingered there. She grew angry with both Robin and Guy, the former for abandoning her and the latter for spurning her while refusing to dislodge himself from her mind. She was desperate for a new distraction.

Eventually she decided that she needed to leave Knighton. Not for good, but to be gone long enough to soothe her mind and make the memories fade. And if she was fortunate, she would find something to channel her energies into. Visiting Will and Djaq was her first thought, but she ended up dismissing it as they would be sure to remind her too much of Robin and of the times when the gang were still together in the forest that, despite the peril and hardship, had held the promise of a bright future. _When the king returned_, she smiled bitterly. She then thought briefly of going to France to join Robin, but with her French being dangerously close to atrocious, a voyage of this length to an uncertain destination in a war-torn land – Robin's last letter had been dispatched from Vaudreuil before Easter but she understood that they kept moving around as Philippe pressed his temporary advantage – seemed too much of a risky proposition even for her. Besides, her pride rebelled against the idea of her needing to seek Robin out. She also had relatives, her father's cousin and his family, in nearby Sheffield, and so thought of going there, but they had not been particularly close over the years and she suspected that boredom would catch up with her there all too soon.

That left, ironically, an adversary rather than her friends as the most likely destination. After some reflection, she decided that she would use the pretext of her newly restored status as a landowning lady to present herself to Prince John, whom she had missed in Nottingham while they were gone to London to greet Richard. And two weeks before midsummer, having spent a small fortune on a new wardrobe and a new carriage, she left Knighton Hall for Windsor Castle.

*

The journey had been tedious but the pleasant weather and long summer days had made it bearable, and while Marian did not quite share her maid Sarah's cheerful excitement at the prospect, the sense of intrigue and challenge awaiting her filled her with anticipation.

Unable to support his lavish and leisurely lifestyle on the meagre income from his Irish possessions, Prince John had established a court of sorts in Windsor, one of his father's castles that Richard had graciously let him occupy, and entertained the rich and profligate who were willing to make ample donations to keep that court running. Most nobles, even those who had supported John earlier, had sided with Richard upon his return, but some were circumspect enough to hedge their bets seeing as Richard risked his life daily in his French campaign, and so paid court to the prince. Others were merely lured by the carefree and dissolute pastimes that his patronage allowed. John welcomed everyone, using his considerable charms to make the nobles feel valued by him and even indebted to him for the hospitality, even if their donations had paid for it in the first place. He saw each new arrival if not as a potential supporter, then at least as a potentially valuable pawn in his games.

The prince had bid Marian a gracious welcome, thanking her eloquently for her gift of expensive cloth and furs, and seemed rather taken with her, so much so that she had to frequently invoke her imminent wedding to one of Richard's favourites in an attempt to keep John's notoriously lecherous attentions at bay. It may not have stopped him in the least had he not been rather occupied at the moment with a new Occitan mistress, and Marian said her daily prayers that the lady's charms would hold their spell for weeks to come.

Windsor Castle, though recently expanded and largely rebuilt in stone in King Henry's reign, was still a relatively modest affair, little more than a big irregular rotund stump of a keep, a few smaller wooden buildings flanking the bailey, and a curtain wall. Marian almost smiled when she first saw it; Nottingham Castle was rather grand by comparison - no wonder John had reportedly liked it so much. Still, inside the keep there was plenty of space for a grand assembly hall, a few opulent common rooms, and living quarters, and while Marian thought wistfully of the privacy of her own quarters in Nottingham, not to mention her manor at Knighton, the room she ended up sharing with two other ladies was large and sunny, and their chatter helped keep away gloomy thoughts.

Time passed in hunts and dinners and music and dances, and Marian barely noticed how a month went by. She made a few friends, or at least good acquaintances, among the young ladies, and their confidences had provided her with nuggets of information that were of more value than mere gossip. In between the usual inane tales of who was courting who and what illicit liaisons had been spotted and who seemed to be the prince's latest conquest, Marian learned the names of most of the castle's current and recent guests, and with a bit of judicious probing, disguised as a young woman's interest in eligible men, was able to reconstruct their backgrounds and likely loyalties. She was amazed at how many details the young noblewomen were able to relate without ever realizing the political implications. For her, connecting the dots and looking beneath the surface was a fascinating pursuit.

John's reconciliation with Richard was little more than a masterful pretence that had succeeded at tugging at his headstrong but chivalrous elder brother's heartstrings. Richard was hot-tempered and notoriously cruel in his anger, but a show of humility and repentance never failed to work on his Christian conscience. Moreover, he still remembered John's defection to his side in their war with their own father as a token of John's allegiance to _him_ instead of seeing it for what it was, a sign of fickleness and treachery.

Initially John was indeed happy to have escaped with his life and the near-useless title of Lord of Ireland, though his outrageous behaviour years earlier had made him highly unpopular and unwelcome in his remaining domain. He even struck a blow against his erstwhile ally Philippe Auguste with his dastardly capture of Evreux and the massacre of its garrison soon after receiving Richard's pardon. But when the French king easily recaptured the town and later seized John's baggage train in retribution just before a truce was struck, John lost his zeal and begged Richard to let him retire to England. It was not long before he resumed his earlier plotting with a vengeance and, and a few grovelling missives, re-established an active and utterly subversive correspondence with Philippe. Windsor had its share of Norman and Angevin guests; many of them came and went every few weeks to see to their estates. In public John treated all of them with the same mixture of _bonhomie_ and lewd jokes, and it took a keen eye to discern which of them enjoyed the prince's particularly close confidence and were thus likely to be using their travels to carry letters between John and the French sovereign whose content, if discovered by Richard, would spell a terrible reckoning for the prince.

In truth, even though Richard was unaware of the state of affairs at John's court, he was a wise enough monarch to have learned from his previous mistake with the inept and unpopular Longchamp and left a competent and astute administrator in his stead this time around. Hubert Walter, as principled as he was intelligent, had literally waged war in the preceding months to stop John's ambitious plans, laying siege to castles and lobbying among the nobility, and where Richard may have been willing to give his brother the benefit of the doubt regarding his repentance and loyalty, Walter harboured no such illusions and kept an eye on John's entourage with the help of a few trusted nobles who made a convincing show of enjoying and sustaining John's hospitality.

For Marian, this meant a return to her element, to spying and scheming in hostile territory, and she relished the thrill. She was particularly suspicious of the Frenchmen who, she correctly surmised, numbered Philippe's agents among them. Her French was not good enough for easy conversation or effortless eavesdropping, but she tried to keep track of their comings and goings, their dealings with John, and the whereabouts of their quarters – they were almost always afforded private rooms – hoping to use this to her advantage and to King Richard's benefit. She no longer had the ardent faith in the sovereign that Robin had once instilled in her, but her innate sense of justice rebelled against John's backstabbing and made her eager to expose him, or at least curb his treacherous ways.

Still, Marian could not help feeling apprehensive. She had put herself in danger before, true, but it had always happened with adversaries whose tactics, mindset, and failings she was well familiar with, and there had always been the sense that if the worst came to the worst, one of them would listen to her desperate pleas and ultimately protect her, even at the cost of his life, though it had carried an implicit price for her. But she was not in Nottingham anymore. At Windsor, she suspected that if she were caught, her captors would not be anywhere near as lenient in deciding her punishment, or as incongruously chivalrous about administering it, as Guy had been. If there was anything that charms and doe-like looks could get her here, it was merely a more disgusting kind of violence rather than forgiveness of misdeeds. Suddenly, her previous exploits seemed childish and tame by comparison.

*

From the moment Marian had set her eyes on Raoul Taisson, she felt danger. There was a deliberate, measured quality about the man's quiet voice and soft smiles that spoke of controlled menace, of ambition and ruthlessness and dishonesty that made her skin creep. But after a few days she began to wonder if she had been wrong and Taisson was just another visiting Frenchman enjoying the food and wine and a pretty mistress, as John all but ignored him.

Then late one night, as the rowdy guests, drunk after the long banquet, lingered around the table amid crude jokes and equally crude attempts at flirting, Marian climbed the stairs to the top of the keep to watch the thin moon rise from the crenellated battlements. The keep was at Windsor's core, protected by the high and massive curtain walls that surrounded the castle, and there were no guards at its top. She had discovered the vantage point two weeks earlier and had since come up there almost daily, whenever she longed for a moment of peace and quiet and solitude. It was a breezy night, and she soon started shivering and was ready to go back when she heard voices, followed by footsteps coming up, and froze. The muffled conversation was in French, but one of the voices was unmistakable. The singsong tenor, enunciating the words with cultured precision. _Prince John_. And she recognized the other voice, more level and hard-edged, as Taisson's.

Marian crouched under the parapet, hidden from view deep in the night shadows. She cursed her poor French as the meaning of words and phrases escaped her. Still, she understood enough.

_...leave at dawn... _

_...it is time... _

_...have them safely in my room..._

_...now or never... _

_...we'll be finally rid of the damned Yes-and-No... _

_...assure Le Roi Dieudonnè of my devotion..._

_...guard them with my life... _

_...great faith in you... _

Her blood ran cold. She had known Richard's Occitan nickname from Robin, and recognised the flattering epithet that had been Philippe's moniker since birth. Her worst fears were confirmed; encouraged by a string of setbacks Richard had recently suffered in Normandy at Philippe's hands, John was rearing for a strike.

As soon as the two men had walked far enough to the other side of the keep, Marian darted noiselessly for the stairs and after a few slow creeping steps, raced the rest of the way down. Taisson had something locked in his room that was at the heart of this plot, and had promised to guard that something with his life, whatever 'they' were – letters, Marian suspected. She needed to get to Taisson's room before he did, to find out more so that she could warn Richard.

Moments later she was hurrying down the gallery outside the Frenchman's room, almost crying with frustration. The top of the keep may have been deserted, but the gallery had an impressive contingent of guards, with a pair of stocky men posted right outside Taisson's door. _So much for a chance to pick the lock_. That left the room window, and before she had thought it through, Marian was on the floor above, squeezing through a window in a niche just off the stairway landing that was mercifully devoid of guards.

In retrospect it had been sheer stupidity. At that instant, however, Marian was rather proud of herself, not only for having spotted the exact position of Taisson's chamber in the keep, but also for having studied the outside of the keep closely enough to know that there was a ledge running around it that passed just a foot or two above the window of that chamber. It was impossible to negotiate for a normal person. But not for the former Nightwatchman.

Still, even for her it was a hair-raising experience. She was grateful for the clouds that had by then obscured the moon and masked her from view of the guards on the curtain walls as she inched along the ledge, but the darkness made her painstaking progress even more perilous. Yet the fear that she could be too late, that Taisson might return to the room before her, or catch her there, pushed her forward. Finally, seeing the dark gap of the small window below, she crouched and, grabbing the ledge for dear life, swung down – and after a moment of sheer terror, felt the stone beneath her feet.

The window was ajar to let some air in, and Marian breathed a brief sigh of relief before leaping down to the floor, though in the next instant she froze as she wondered about her escape route. She had figured that she would leave the way she had come, but the window was high above the floor and it looked like she would need to move a piece of furniture beneath it to step on in order to lever herself back up. Even if she managed to do it quietly enough not to alert the guards outside, the arrangement was bound to arouse Taisson's suspicions later. _Perhaps I can hide under the bed and sneak out after he is gone_, she wondered before crouching to see the space beneath the bed frame taken up by three chests of what must have been Taisson's belongings. It was not looking good.

However, her thoughts soon returned to the pressing matter that had brought her there. She cast a glance around the chamber looking for a possible repository for the letters. The room was large but sparingly furnished; aside from the bed and the chests under it, which she dared not move, it held another long chest that had turned out to contain bed linens, a chair, and a writing desk in a corner. A fireplace graced the wall opposite the bed; despite the summertime, the thick stone walls made the castle rooms damp and chilly, and the remnants of a fire danced around the glowing embers, warming the chamber for the night. After the brief survey, Marian's eyes focused on a plain wooden box on top of the writing desk. It certainly seemed the most likely place.

Not surprisingly, it was locked.

Marian swore under her breath. She was not unprepared for this; aside from the usual dagger pin in her hair, her Windsor attire boasted a jewel-studded girdle that held a pair of picklocks, and she prided herself on her proficiency with those. Still, any delay meant less time left to get out, and if she pried the lock open, it was practically impossible to re-lock it to avoid detection. With a growing sense of dread, she wondered how she would get through this.

But there was no going back either, and the thought that the contents of the box might spell the difference between King Richard's life and death kept her fingers busy as she manoeuvred the smaller picklock in the keyhole of the box. _Maybe Taisson will forget that he locked the box. Maybe I can squeeze under the bed, after all_. _Too many maybe's already_.

Her work done, she lifted the lid and almost smiled as she saw the tight vellum scrolls inside. The first two were letters of safe conduct, one bearing Prince John's seal and the other graced by that of Philippe Auguste, for England and France, respectively. Two more were even less interesting, a record of expenses and a short letter to Taisson's mistress at Windsor, apologising for his sudden departure and hoping for a reunion later, no doubt to be delivered the following morning. She rolled these up again, momentarily worried that the clues to the plot were hidden elsewhere.

Then she got to the remaining two scrolls, and knew that her hunch had been right.

Each of the documents was tied up with silk string held together with John's seal.

She pulled the dagger pin from her hair and, heating the blade over the dying fire, carefully lifted the seals and frantically unrolled the vellum, straining to make out the French.

The first letter was addressed to Hugh le Brun of Lusignan, an important nobleman in Poitou who had thrown his support behind Richard, and it urged him to reconsider his reluctance to side with John's cause. "You have no reasons to hesitate now", it said, "seeing as things are going for my brother, I dare hope that the tide has turned again. Once he is no longer an obstacle, our fortunes shall be greatly improved and you shall be amply rewarded for your loyalty". _Loyalty_, Marian snorted. _Betrayal sounds more like it_.

She turned to the second one - and as her eyes scanned the florid, sloppy handwriting, she had to remind herself to breathe. It was a letter to Philippe Auguste; apparently, John had arrived at a juncture where he thought he could not afford to spend time on circumspect hints, and apparently he had the utmost trust in Taisson as a courier, for his treachery was spelt out in all its hideousness.

"First we must get rid of the insufferable Breton spawn", John wrote, referring to his young nephew Arthur of Brittany whom Richard had chosen as his successor to John's indignation, "so that no short-sighted designs of my pig-headed brother shall stand in our way". Then, he continued, "we must swiftly eliminate the menace of Acre as such", no doubt referring to Richard himself. "Hugh le Brun is still dithering but Renaud de Dammartin is loyal to me as ever, and I have great faith in the excellent Aymer d'Angoulème to ensure that the desired outcome is achieved should Renaud fail". She was stunned; Renaud of Dammartin, though once a childhood friend of Philippe's, had long broken with him and was considered a faithful ally of Richard's in the current campaign, and the revelation that he was John's double agent and a potential assassin was almost as shocking as the mention of Aymer as a backup was to be expected. Her thoughts were racing; she had to find a way to warn Richard before it was too late.

And at that moment, she heard the key turning in the door's lock.

Time slowed down, and in her light-headed state, Marian felt as if she was watching herself in the room from somewhere in the middle of the ceiling. She cast another frantic look around; she could crouch beside the bed, but it was a matter of moments before Taisson would see her there and raise an alarm, and she had no time to squeeze under the bed. The long chest was full, the fireplace still hot, and there was no place to hide. Then the door was open, and Taisson had half closed it when his eyes fell on her and went wide in shock for an instant before narrowing in anger.

- What do you think you are doing here? – he hissed in heavily accented English, turning back to yell for the guards.

Marian panicked. Her only weapon was the dagger pin that she had used to open the seals, and once the guards were inside she could not fight the three of them, all of them armed – not while wearing a dress, in any case. She did the only thing she could think of. Grabbing her dagger from the top of the desk, she flung it at the Frenchman's neck.

She had hoped to quickly and quietly disable him and drag him inside before the guards could realise what had happened, locking the door behind her and climbing out onto the ledge. It was disastrous enough, meaning that John would know that someone had seen the letters, and that she would be a marked woman if Taisson survived; at least she would escape with her life and could take the scrolls with her as proof of John's treachery.

But it was not meant to be. Her dagger had found Taisson's jugular, and the man collapsed backwards in the doorway, blood spewing everywhere.

There was no way out now. In a final desperate move, Marian grabbed the two letters and flung them on top of the canopy draped over the bed, and took the rest of the scrolls and threw them onto the red embers in the fireplace. Then the guards had rushed in, and she knew that she was dead, and that dying _quickly_ was perhaps her best hope.

*  
Marian's eyes snapped open as footsteps echoed through Windsor Castle's dungeon and keys jangled in the jailer's hands. The man stopped at the bars of her cell, accompanied by two guards, the expressionless eyes in his bland face squinting against the gloom as he worked the locks open and silently motioned her outside. Marian rose and, despite the chill and her sorry state, drew herself up to her full height. 'I am ready', she said defiantly, her chin raised as she walked out.

She had been through this once before. This time, however, there was no one to save her.

.

_End of Part 1_

_._


	2. Chapter 2

**Still remember the story of Marian sitting in the dungeon? I was hoping to finish it about a month ago, but RL has a way of messing things up, and writing anything outside the timeframe of the show poses interesting questions a la what does a medieval archbishop who is also the equivalent of a Prime Minister wear at his office? (you would have to read the following to see my best shot, but suffice it to say, I spent a couple of days becoming intimately familiar with the Catholic Encyclopedia ;) ) Anyway, here is the next instalment, split into two chapters for length. The story has gone from a two-parter into a de facto four-parter, but is 99% complete - I will post the last (4th) part in a couple of days. Honestly.**

**PS for fellow Guy fans: before you wonder if the (anti)hero is ever going to show up, let me say that the last part is written almost entirely from his PoV. I confess it was a long wait ;)**

* * *

They climbed the steps from the dungeon into the grey courtyard, eerily quiet in the hour between night and dawn, and Marian was darkly surprised not to see a block and axe anywhere. Or even a gallows for that matter, if they had chosen to subject her to that indignity despite her rank. Instead, there was a cart.

_Of course_, she realised, _John will not want an execution to wake up the guests. They will probably drag me off to the woods and kill me there._

At the jailer's bidding, she climbed in awkwardly, her chained hands making it a challenge, and the guards followed her. The jailer gestured to the cart driver, the men at the archway pulled the huge gates open, the cart trundled out, and Marian looked at the outside world for the first time in more than a month.

It was beautiful. The grass silver with dew, the wisps of mist hovering above the rolling meadows, the dark emerald forest beyond. The sky fading from the night's sapphire to the lapis of early morning, hemmed on the east side by a strip of scarlet. In her twenty-four years she had grown to know the countryside with its sunsets and sunrises and meadows and forests only too well, and it had not really worried her that someday she would be looking at it for the last time. It was still many years away. But that day was here.

She tried to keep her detachment, to see her execution as an instant of pain before life everlasting beckoned to her. She repeated Pater Noster in her mind, though the lines snagged and jumbled as she went through them, and thought of seeing Robin in the hereafter, hopefully many, many years later, yet the idea gave her no comfort. _What is wrong with me_, she protested mentally, before another image came up in her mind's eye, and she shook her head in disbelief.

It was not Robin that she wanted to greet on the other side.

She barely noticed when they reached the hamlet a mile away from the castle, still and sleepy in the predawn. By then she was vaguely confused about the procession, but kept telling herself that the details did not matter. Then the cart stopped outside a grimy, stocky building that looked like a tavern, and she was ordered to get off and was shoved inside.

Marian stifled a pang of fear; she had hoped, at least, to meet her death in the open, to look at the sky and smell the fresh air in her last living moments. But when she was led into a dimly lit room and motioned to a bench in front of a table, she gave in to utter bewilderment.

A man was sitting at the table opposite her. She vaguely recognised his sharp face – Hugh d'Oyry, one of John's lieutenants she had seen around Windsor. He regarded her in silence before beginning in a dull, toneless voice.

- You were to be beheaded today, my lady, for the crimes of murder and intended theft that you committed. But His Highness in his infinite mercy has decided that your confinement has afforded sufficient punishment to make you repent your wrongdoings, and has deemed it possible to pardon you. I am hereby to return you to your estate of Knighton, and you are to remain there at the peril of losing your life should you be found contemplating crimes again.

At first she was too shocked to respond, or to think clearly. _It makes no sense_, she kept saying to herself before the full meaning dawned on her. She was not to die that day, after all.

*

They made it to Knighton in just over a week. She was to wear the handcuffs until they reached it, d'Oyry had told her indifferently at the start of the journey, but he unchained her once and let her bathe and change unmolested, and allowed her the use of her personal effects that had been delivered in his wagon – all intact except for a silver hand mirror, a silver jewel box, and the modest jewellery it had contained, which, along with her fancy new carriage, had been confiscated as part of her punishment. _To pay for one of John's banquets is more like it_, she thought wryly, glad that she had at least left Robin's engagement ring back at Knighton lest John recognise it as his mother's and demand it back. Still, when the giddy euphoria had subsided, she was baffled by her miraculous salvation. It was not like John to show mercy – not unless it was highly entertaining or carried a substantial reward. And her pardon afforded him neither.

All her attempts to start a conversation with d'Oyry had failed, and she was left to her thoughts for most of the journey, her mind churning through the month she had spent in the dungeon. Prince John had visited her the day after her capture, and by then she had mastered her fear and collected her wits enough to have concocted the least damning explanation possible. She had caught Taisson's eye, she had said, glad that the dead man could not contradict her, and when invited to his room earlier that fateful day had noticed him acting furtively around the box, and had assumed that it held valuables. Then, feigning shame, Marian proceeded with a tale of imminent ruin brought about by her reckless spending that had forced her to resort to theft. She had even pawned things belonging to her betrothed, she lied, and owed money in taxes, and desperately needed a way to avoid the debtors' pit and keep her manor. So she had snuck back into Taisson's chamber that night looking for treasure, was disappointed to find the box containing scrolls she allegedly could not read – and was caught by Taisson who had thrown all the scrolls into the fire and had almost strangled her before she stabbed him in panic. If John had had doubts about the veracity of her tale, she could not detect them.

Still, he had left her with little more than an admonition to repent her crime in the face of eternity, and for weeks after that, Marian prepared to die, knowing that John would not bring Taisson's murder before a court for fear of being exposed in his plotting, yet certain that he would want to be rid of her. She did not regret her ill-fated foray so much as the naive idealism that had fuelled her recklessness. She had been championing great causes, fighting injustice as the Nightwatchman, then waging battles against the plotting Sheriff alongside Robin who had convinced her that King Richard's return would put an end to all oppression, certain all along that the ends would justify the means. She had dismissed Guy as too flawed, violent and ambitious and easily influenced by his superior, and had had few scruples in using him for noble reasons. And she had gradually come to believe in the legend of Robin Hood, brave and righteous and invincible and loyal to his king.

Then Richard had returned, and even before he took Robin from her, she caught a glimpse of her beloved as just another ambitious young man eager for his patron's approval, while confronted with the reality of Guy as Sheriff that had compelled her to acknowledge that the man was capable of fairness and restraint. The king left his country drained by his immense ransom and by a new round of taxes, ended up pardoning the treacherous brother who had schemed against him, and went on to wage a war on his onetime best friend and alleged lover. The world was neither simple and straightforward nor easily divided into good and evil. The realities of politics and relationships were much more complex than she had been able, or willing, to fathom. Even her valiant attempt to save King Richard's life by seizing John's letters had likely been in vain. Richard had plenty of enemies, and while John may have suffered a setback with his plot because of her interference, Philippe Auguste would continue fighting him anyway; Marian could hardly stop that war. Faced with imminent death, she could not help regretting her childish illusions.

One night, when the darkness and solitude had become unbearable, she had wept, stifling her sobs so the dungeon guards would not hear her. She had spent her short life chasing after ideals, waiting for a king who cared little for her or for his entire country, loving a man who had twice abandoned her, and scorning another who had been more deserving than she had been able to admit. Guy had been right; her wilfulness would kill her.

Yet by an incomprehensible twist of fate, she had avoided death and was almost free.

The carriage emerged from the gloom of the woods into the stretch of open road lit by the pale autumn sun before stopping in front of the manor house that still looked brand-new. Three months later and a dozen years older, Marian was home again.

*

A letter from Robin was waiting for her. Marian unrolled it eagerly, hoping for something to cheer her up, some warmth to make her feel loved again, maybe even an invitation to France to get her away from Prince John and loneliness and self-recrimination, but as she skipped through the lines she found no such solace. 'My beloved Marian', it began, 'I am writing to you from Dieppe where we have just suffered a painful blow at the hands of the black-hearted Philippe. After we were compelled to retreat from Vaudreuil, the French scourge has pursued us here and used Greek fire to set our ships aflame. Our King swore revenge on the malicious fiend, but our attack on the French rear guard was driven off. It now appears that, having caused us plenty of trouble in Normandy, Philippe is moving his forces into the Berry, and has his greedy sights set on Issoudun that has been captured by our forces. Not to worry; we have our best men and commanders ready to defend it...'

Marian set the letter aside. Earlier, she had replied to Robin right away if the courier would wait, or, if there was no way to send an immediate response, she would start a long letter that she would add to weekly, so that it would grow to three or four sheets of vellum by the time she could send it. Now, she could not think of anything to write. She doubted she ever would.

Before d'Oyry left he had instructed Marian to present herself to the Sheriff within a week, warning her that her failure to do so at regular intervals would lead to the confiscation of her manor. The prospect gave her mixed feelings; in spite of her springtime resolve, she wanted to see Guy again - but dreaded the inevitable mockery. Surely he would have been informed of the misfortune that had befallen her, and would deride her recklessness. Still, three days after she had returned, she ordered her horse saddled and made her way to Nottingham.

Marian approached the castle with an unshakable sense of déjà vu. Just less than a year earlier she had arrived at the Council of Nobles filled with anticipation and nursing a glimmer of hope that was quickly extinguished. She had no such hopes now, but her struggle since that day to forget Guy had ended in defeat. The man had left a void in her life despite his sins and shortcomings, and in her dungeon musings she had gone from being bitter with him for having dismissed her to remembering him with an unexpectedly wistful fondness - to being mortified by the admission that he had sought to amend his past offences while she herself had wronged him repeatedly with her lies and had never acknowledged it. This meeting could afford her a chance to tell Guy that she regretted her deception, if he would listen. _He will see it as another attempt to manipulate him, _she thought , she needed to apologise to him for her past callousness whether he accepted her apology or not. Whether or not he cared that she needed him.

She rode past the barbican – and stopped her horse so abruptly that her head almost bumped into its neck. For years, she had been used to seeing Vasey's washed-our greyish-blue standards gracing the castle entrance. On her last visit, she had seen them replaced with Guy's garish black-and-yellow ones – she could not understand why he had changed the elegant black-and-gold of his father's crest to the loud pattern, but had never given it much thought.

Now she stared, in incomprehension and creeping dread, at the white-and-green banner before her.

It was wrong.

Her legs and her voice both unsteady, she asked the guards at the entrance to take her to the sheriff, and as one of them led her up the stairs and down the corridor to the familiar study, she kept trying in vain to calm herself. There was probably a mundane explanation, she assured herself desperately. Guy had decided to change his crest. Or he had received a new title, and the colours went with it.

Or he had married and was displaying his bride's family colours in celebration, she countered sadly.

But when she was led into the study, she knew that the reassurances had been in vain.

The man looking at her from behind the desk was a stranger.

William de Ferrers was relatively young for a Sheriff, born a year after Prince John. He was somewhat above average height, though shorter and stockier than Gisborne, his light brown hair tended to curl despite being close-cropped, and he wore a short, neatly trimmed beard. His face was broad and regular; many would consider it handsome.

He could not possibly see what may have warranted the young lady's reaction when she nearly fainted upon seeing him.

After a momentary confusion, after water and wine had been fetched and Marian had been led to a chair and drank some of both, she finally managed, in a small and shaky voice, to ask the lord's name, and whether he was indeed the Sheriff of Nottingham. For a while she said nothing to his affirmative reply, but eventually continued, her voice barely above a whisper:

- What happened to Lord Gisborne?

- He was replaced, - de Ferrers said calmly. He did not know, or care, what exactly had happened to his predecessor that had brought about his appointment. All he knew was that a letter from Hubert Walter, Richard's Chief Justiciar, had reached him two weeks earlier, informing him of his new position and ordering him to take over his duties from Gisborne immediately. He had hurried to Nottingham, pleased to have been given the coveted post, and had received the keys, the treasury, and all the records in good order, though Gisborne himself had apparently left Nottingham a few days before his arrival. He did not have any reasons to dwell on this circumstance, and was slightly embarrassed at his ignorance in the face of Marian's obvious distress.

When she had recovered enough to speak steadily she explained the orders that had brought her to the castle. Lord de Ferrers did not seem overly concerned about Marian's criminal proclivities. So long as she paid her taxes regularly, he said – her one-year allowance was over anyway – and presented herself at Nottingham at least once a month, he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt as to how she spent her time in between. Marian expressed her gratitude as warmly as her voice would allow, and promptly left.

She hardly remembered how she got back to Knighton, lost between futile guesses about Guy's whereabouts and the reasons for his departure, and an overwhelming abject dread. She could not believe that Guy had mismanaged the shire so badly as to warrant being replaced. She was seized with a terrible apprehension that he was somehow involved in John's plots, but it seemed unlikely given their bitter quarrel and the apparent multitude of potential assassins that were already conveniently in Normandy, some of them right in Richard's camp, if John's claims to Philippe were to be believed. Perhaps Guy had simply had a falling-out with the Chief Justiciar.

Whatever it was, she had to find out.

*

Sarah, who Marian had summoned to her chamber, was startled at her mistress's state. She had ecstatically welcomed Marian back three days earlier, having feared the worst for weeks after being told by fellow maids at Windsor of her lady's imprisonment and being smuggled out of the castle late at night, holding a silver chalice a kind-hearted serving girl had pinched from the kitchen that, broken up into pieces, had paid her way back to Nottingham. Her worry at seeing Marian in acute distress gave way to shock when she found out the reason.

- My lady, please calm yourself! – she entreated. – Surely Gisborne doesn't deserve such grief!

- I was wrong about him, Sarah, - Marian repeated stubbornly. – He is a better man than I allowed myself to think. And I fear that something bad may have befallen him.

- But he served that fiend Vasey, and killed Rowan's father and the poor workmen and burned the manor and –

Marian shook her head in response. Guy had committed crimes, but he had not been beyond redemption.

- I need to know where he is, - she insisted.

- I'll tell Allan to come here, my lady, - Sarah assured her. She had run into Allan in Nottingham the day she had come back and had told him of Marian's terrible fate, but had seen little of him since. – He worked for Gisborne, certainly he'll know what happened and why Sir Guy left.

- Do you know where to find Allan? – Marian pressed. Despite the exhaustion of her earlier trip, she was ready to seek the man out herself.

- I heard... from Simon, our groom, that he's just been hired to run the estate at Clifton.

- Clifton?! – Marian repeated excitedly. – That is Guy's manor, isn't it? – _Why have I not thought of going there?_

- I heard that Lord de Ferrers has taken it over, - Sarah replied cautiously. Whatever madness had seized her mistress that day, she seemed very distraught at hearing of any apparent misfortunes that had been visited on Gisborne.

Marian sighed.

- Thank you, Sarah, - she managed calmly. – Will you please go and ask Simon to saddle me a fresh horse?

- You won't make it back before dark, my lady, - Sarah implored her. – I beg you to wait till tomorrow!

- I cannot, Sarah dear, - she put her hand on the maid's arm, - I must speak to Allan today or I will lose my mind.

_I fear you already have, my lady_, Sarah thought as she made her way to the stables.

*

- Maz! –Unlike their previous awkward encounter, Allan was delighted to see Marian in the doorway of the humble home he occupied in Clifton right next to the manor house.

- Allan, - she exhaled after he had released her from the best approximation of a bear hug he could manage. – Am I ever glad to see you!

- Look, you're the one who escaped mortal danger, - he countered. – I was just sitting here!

- And you never came to see me at Knighton, - she chided belatedly, immediately regretting it as she saw Allan squirm. - Anyway, I need to talk to you and it cannot wait.

- Let me guess, - he began slowly, - you have trouble in mind and you want me to take part in it.

- Maybe, - she replied evasively, - maybe not. – After all, the answer depended on what Allan would tell her.

- What is it?

- I need to know where Guy is.

- Look, Marian... – Allan avoided her eyes. – I am not much help here. See, he didn't tell me anything... when he left the first time he told me he was off to take the tax money to London, and that I was in charge until he returned, and the second time he just paid me my wages and said goodbye. I asked him where he was off to and he wouldn't say, just ordered me out. – Allan scratched his head in embarrassment.

- You mean Guy has been gone from here _twice_ this past month?

- Yeah, he was gone about two weeks and came back just before Assumption and left again after a day or two. Packed up all his stuff and rode off like that. – Allan's voice carried a slight note of bitterness. – Wouldn't tell me anything. But he got me this post here, - he went on, - so I shouldn't be badmouthing Giz, really.

- When was that, Allan? I mean, the first time Guy left, when was that?

- Right after St James's day, - Allan's eyes sharpened at the memory. – It was a day after... Shite! – Allan slapped himself on the forehead with such force that he winced, but the grimace was promptly replaced by a smile.

- What?!

- It was the day after Sarah came back and told me about you, - Allan continued sheepishly, but with growing excitement. – And I told Giz right away. I told him I wanted to get John Little and go to Windsor to try and get you out, and he said it was hopeless and stupid and he needed me here, and forbade me. He did not seem to care really, just muttered 'serves her right', you know, and went on about the usual business and I was furious at him and thought he was a heartless bastard. And then the next day he says he's gonna take the taxes to London himself and ah... – he slapped his forehead again, though more carefully this time. – and I believed him! Damn that man!

Marian did not know whether to laugh or cry. Rather, she ended up doing a bit of both.

- Marian? – Allan seemed worried at her reaction. – You mad at me, or what?

- No, - she moaned. _I am mad at myself. _

Whatever misfortune Guy had run into, she had likely provoked it.

At least there was a chance for her to set things right.

- Allan... – she began.

- What?

- You were right. When you said I'd want you to join me in stirring up trouble, you were right.

- I knew it, - he sighed in mock exasperation, - I just knew it. I was just beginning to enjoy it here in Clifton. The house and all, you know...

- Allan... – Marian's voice took on a warning tone.

- All right, all right, Maz. What do you want me to do?

- I want you to go to Windsor with me.

- What?! – Allan had expected a trip to London, or to France, but Windsor... – you just got out of there, remember? And Prince John's still there, right? And I'd bet he's not going to welcome you back with open arms...

- No, he is not, - Marian agreed.- But he doesn't need to know that I am there. _Unless I want him to_.

- Why Windsor, anyway? The justiciar's in London, ain't he? And he's the one who makes the appointments in the King's name, right?

- Because I left something at Windsor. And I want it back.

*

They left the next morning. Marian was up long before sunrise to pack the few belongings she had chosen into the saddlebags. A change or two of clothes, a few daggers, a couple of silver dishes she had bought as an indulgence when she moved into Knighton, to sell if they needed money. She put a couple of handfuls of coins into a purse after counting out the money due in taxes – with the harvest just starting, there was not a lot or spare funds – and reaching into a recess in the floorboards of her bedroom, pulled out her engagement ring. She felt a touch of shame at the thought of selling it, but dismissed the scruples. It was merely a piece of jewellery. Love needed no rings to confirm it... she paused at the uncomfortable realisation. Did she and Robin love each other still? She was not ready to admit the final truth even though she knew it.

They made it to Windsor in just under six days, travelling morning till night, trading in horses twice when theirs were too tired, spending a small fortune in the process. With Marian unable to conceal the fact that she was female – Allan had finally convinced her to give up that pretence – she wore a nun's habit as a disguise, and it slowed them down when they rode though villages or spotted approaching riders and carriages, as nuns on galloping horses were absolutely unheard-of. The closer they got the more Marian bickered with Allan trying to persuade him to hurry up, worried that they were too late, but when they finally arrived at the hamlet outside Windsor she was the one to call for a pause to think things over.

- Come on, Maz, we've been through this. – Allan urged.- We buy the cider, borrow a cart, I go in, get to the kitchen, find Beth, come back and then you go in when she tells you to. Easy, ain't it?

Beth was the kitchen girl Sarah had befriended at Windsor who had helped her escape. Marian was now hoping to get her help in gaining entry to the castle, as scaling the curtain walls was out of the question and walking in through the gate unprepared, even in disguise, was too dangerous. They had briefly thought of Marian hiding in the cider cart when Allan drove it in, but dismissed it as too risky in case Allan's unfamiliar face raised suspicions and the cart was searched.

- I am still not sure if you should go in there, Allan, - Marian countered. – Maybe we can just wait for a servant returning to the castle and ask them to find Beth and tell her to meet us here.

- Meet who, Lady Marian of the dungeon? – Allan snorted.

- We can just say Sarah, - her tone was faintly offended.

- And what makes you think she is the only Beth in the kitchen? And that your maid is the only Sarah she knows? And even if she is, why should Beth trust this message and not think it's some sort of trap to catch her as the chalice thief? And how can she walk out of the castle when she pleases and not raise suspicions? And where do we wait for a returning servant? And what if whoever we give the message to forgets about it in a blink? And...

- Very well, I give up, - Marian sighed. – You go.

*

Allan came back just before dusk, and by the look on his face, one would suppose the man had been in heaven.

- What is the matter with you, Allan? – Marian smirked.

- You shoulda seen her, Maz, the girl's an angel! – he breathed.

- Who?

- Beth, that's who. The most beautiful angel I've ever seen!

Marian smirked again. _One would not think you have seen too many._

Yet when Marian made it to the castle late in the evening with the laundry cart and saw the girl who had met them, she understood the reason for Allan's excitement and other things besides.

Beth had told Allan to send Marian to the laundry house in the hamlet and ask for her elder sister Judy who was to take the cart back to Windsor along with two other girls. By Prince John's orders the chore was performed by washing women downstream of the castle 'so they would not ruin the view'; fresh laundry, dried in the village, was returned to Windsor every other evening, and dirty laundry was loaded the next morning for the day's wash. The guards at the servants' entrance paid little attention to the comings and goings of the laundry cart except to try and flirt with the prettier girls, and it had hardly occurred to them that a dangerous fugitive could be hidden underneath the bulky sacks of linens.

Once in the courtyard, two girls busied themselves with unloading the laundry while Judy distracted the driver, and Marian, dressed in her best reconstruction of the Nightwatchman outfit minus the hooded cloak, and carrying a sack much smaller than the rest, had just slunk off the cart and was looking for a bolthole when someone took her hand. She started and gathered herself into a fighting stance – and felt rather embarrassed when the menace turned out to be a slight girl in a servant's dress pressing a finger to her lips.

- I am Beth, - she whispered. – Come with me.

They went into a dark passage behind a plain doorway, feeling their way down a flight of stairs before Beth opened another door and Marian stepped into a long, chilly room. An oil lamp illuminated a dim circle at its end while the rest was submerged in darkness. From where she stood, Marian could see rows of pots and jars and the occasional barrel. The air smelled of herbs and dried meat. _The pantry_. They walked up to the long table where the lamp stood, and Marian finally took a good look at her companion.

Beth was younger than Marian, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, and very pretty, with dark hair and lovely dark grey eyes. Her face seemed set in a sad and worried expression, and as she explained to Marian how she could reach the top of the keep using the servants' passages most of the way, Marian noticed her natural grace and soft voice and felt keenly sorry for the girl. She had wondered about the reasons for Beth's eagerness to help Sarah, and now her, despite the danger; but looking at Beth, she understood. The girl must have been an unwilling plaything of John's – or of one of his friends – and helping his enemies, as Sarah and Marian doubtless appeared to her, to hurt her tormentor was her best chance of revenge. Marian's hands reflexively clenched into fists.

- It is best that you go now, my lady, - Beth finished. – They're still at the banquet and everyone is... merry, - her mouth twisted at the word, - so that you can get to the room before the guests come back. Then when you're done, come back through here and climb back into the cart. I've told Judy to load a few sacks tonight so you can hide under them, and I'll leave a parcel with some food in it at the back of the cart. God bless you, my lady, I pray that you succeed. – She extinguished the lamp and led Marian up the stairs at the other end.

- And bless you, my dear, I shall pray that you... have a happier life, - Marian whispered at the top of the stairs, her hands on Beth's shoulders, before she stole into a narrow passage lost in darkness. That night, she was breaking a promise she had once made. _Yet another one_. The Nightwatchman is no more, Guy had said, and she had nodded her agreement. And here she was, leather outfit and mask and all. _Just this once, Guy. If I get what I need, it will be the last time, I promise._

She had to feel most of her way up. The servants' corridors did not merit wall sconces for torches, and were too low and narrow to allow for those, in any case. During the day, light seeped in from the rooms and corridors these connected to and from an occasional window where the passages were set against an outside wall; at night, the servants used candles to navigate the tricky steps. But Marian could not risk a candle – if anyone saw her, a single scream of terror or loud oath would spell her doom, and it was best that she had a chance to retreat into darkness if she saw anyone approaching. It took longer, but eventually she made it to the top floor – and after darting across the corridor to the final flight of stairs, was standing at the top of the keep. _It seems I was just here yesterday_, she smiled wistfully. _Yesterday, and a lifetime ago_. But she quickly shook herself out of the reverie; there was not a moment to lose. Getting her bearings, Marian walked up to the battlements and peered down. If her estimate was right, Taisson's old room had to be directly under that spot two floors below.

Marian did not know if the room was occupied, but had to assume the worst, and climbing through that high window at night with a sleeping guest on the bed – not to mention reaching on top of the canopy – was a recipe for disaster. She was likewise disenchanted with the idea of creeping her way along the ledge; it was not only dangerous but also dangerously slow. Still, the guards were in all likelihood still posted outside the room, and her best chance was to quickly make it in and out of the window before the night's revelries were over. She took the sack off her shoulder, pulled out a long rope ladder, and looked for a sturdy anchor to tie it to.

It was not perfect, but it was the best she could get: an iron ring embedded into the battlements to hang pennants from. Marian pulled on it and was pleased when it did not give. She tied the rope ends with several knots, this time pulling on them with all her strength, too well aware that her life depended on it. She was apprehensive even though the arrangement seemed sound, but there were no more excuses for waiting. She rolled down the ladder and tentatively took a step, then another.

The ladder held.

Carefully, slowly at first but picking up her pace as she descended, Marian climbed down past the top floor, then paused to glance down when she reached the ledge. The window was two or three feet to her right; she could either get on the ledge and crawl over from there, or try to pull herself over along the wall while still holding onto the ladder. The latter option seemed better; at least the ladder afforded her a greater measure of safety. She grabbed the rough stone with her right hand, inching her fingers towards the window while pushing against the wall with her left foot, and finally came close enough to grab the edge of the window before she replaced her left foot on the ladder and swung her right leg to wedge a foot against the side of the window. Moments later, fighting the unsettling memory, she pushed open the horn panes and peered into the familiar room.

It was dark, Marian was pleased to note, meaning either that it was vacant or that the occupant had not returned. Peering closer into the chamber, she noticed a burnt-out fire, one or two coals occasionally winking red. _So there is someone supposed to be sleeping here after all, _she winced. She listened carefully for a sound of snoring or stirring coming from the bed, but there was none. Crouching on the window sill, she pulled up the ladder behind her and let its loose end drop into the room. In addition to securing her way out – she was now appalled at her earlier stupidity, thinking that she could have made it out of there by climbing back onto the ledge unaided – the ladder gave her a convenient way down and back up to the window inside the chamber.

Marian was surprised at how calm she was. Whether due to Allan's involvement, Beth's help, or her own careful planning, she was neither distracted nor frantic not frightened, all of which she remembered being the last time she was there. Quietly and deliberately, she took off her boots so as not to leave dirty prints, stepped up on top of the bed covers, and reached onto the canopy.

In that instant, and in that instant only, she was terrified. Her hand swept the fabric but encountered nothing but dust. How could the scrolls be gone? Carefully, Marian lifted the heavy fabric from the edge of the four-poster frame and, wincing and shielding her face so as not to cough from the dust, lowered the canopy toward her.

A slight rustling sound greeted her ears, and Marian exhaled in relief. Naturally, the scrolls had lodged themselves in the middle of the canopy where the fabric sagged the most, but in her initial alarm she had not thought of that. She pushed the vellum inside the shirt she was wearing under her jacket and tightened her belt to make sure the shirt would not come loose so the scrolls could fall out. She then rearranged the canopy, stepped down from the bed, brushed the dust off the covers, put on her boots, and climbed back onto the window sill.

Marian fought the temptation to sit there for a while and relish her success. The documents she had recovered were the best bargaining chip she could hope for, she thought – and was shocked at her own conclusion. She had been too intent on getting the letters, and too worried whether she would find them still in the room, to have given much thought to how exactly she would use them. Now that she held the documents, Marian was no longer anxious to have them delivered to Richard, or to bring about Prince John's ruin at all costs. Certainly, she wanted John punished and Richard safe, but now the damning letters held another purpose for her, one that took precedence over politics.

She would use them to get Guy out of whatever trouble he was in.

Spurred on by the thought, she quickly gathered up the ladder from inside the room, closed the window, and started climbing toward the top of the keep.

*

- My lady, wake up!

Marian squinted to see Judy pulling at her sleeve, and then her eyes travelled sideways to see Allan grinning down at her.

- Are we back already? – she drawled sleepily.

Both Allan and Judy laughed.

- You were asleep in the cart when we left the castle at sunrise, - Judy explained, - we're at Windsor hamlet now, my lady.

Marian smiled. When she made it back to the cart she was certain that, in her excitement, she would spend a sleepless night under the sacks of laundry. _So much for that._

When the farewells were said and Marian had persuaded a reluctant Judy to accept the two silver coins she had pressed into the girl's hand – _I'd do anything for my poor Beth_, Judy had said, _and she wanted so much to help you_ – Marian and Allan went back to the inn they were staying at. The same grimy inn, she had realised, where she had heard the incredible news of her salvation.

- What now, Marian? – Allan asked when the excitement had subsided. – You want to take these to Richard?

Marian hesitated. Allan had always struck her as a pragmatic fellow. She hoped that he would not be the one to shame her with appeals to her conscience now that her plan served a purpose slightly different from her lofty ideals.

- I was thinking, Allan... – she began uncertainly, - I want to help put an end to this plot, but I also need these for a more urgent matter.

- Finding Giz? – Allan ventured quietly, but there was no disapproval in his voice.

- Yes. – She could feel the blush spreading on her cheeks. – _And_ dealing with the politics, if I can.

- I'm with you, - Allan said simply, and was surprised to find Marian's arms around him. – what do we do next? – he managed eventually when she had stepped away.

- Next, we go to London. But first, I need some vellum and ink.

*

The guards at the entrance to the sprawling Westminster Palace were incredulous when a young lady in fine attire rode up to the gate and asked to see Chief Justiciar Hubert Walter on an urgent matter. Nonetheless, they summoned a clerk from his staff.

- His Grace does not see visitors without a prior arrangement, my lady, - the mousy-looking man mumbled upon arrival. – Is there a message I may deliver to him?

Marian paused. She had expected this, but her best instrument of getting the Chief Justiciar's attention was also the riskiest. And she was very reluctant to let it out of her hands for more than was inevitable.

- I have a letter for His Grace, my lord, - she ventured. – But I must either have it back when he has read it, or receive his response, and I cannot let it out of my sight except for when it is in His Grace's hands. May I accompany you and wait outside his chambers? I shall not insist on seeing him, you have my word. _If Walter reads the letter _he_ will want to see _me, she added to herself.

- Very well, my lady, - the clerk said after a moment's hesitation.

They walked the stone-paved floors for quite a while, their steps echoing in the long, spacious halls, before the man stopped outside a massive door leading to the Chief Justiciar's chambers. Despite having a newly constructed archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth just across the river, Hubert Walter dispatched his secular duties as England's _de facto_ ruler from offices set up in the royal palace.

- I would ask you to wait here, my lady, - the clerk turned back to Marian from inside the doorway. – Who shall I say you are?

- Lady Marian of Knighton.

When at last the door opened again it was not the same clerk that had accompanied her but a far more imposing figure. Yet it could not be the Chief Justiciar himself; ceremony aside, Marian knew Hubert Walter to be in his mid-thirties, about Guy's age, and the man before her was clearly much older. Presently the question was answered.

- Are you Lady Marian of Knighton? - the elderly cleric inquired in a French-accented voice.

- Yes, my lord. – She did her best to sound contrite.

- I am Peter of Blois, His Grace's Latin secretary. What is your business with His Grace, my child?

Reluctant as she was to disclose any more than was necessary, Marian suspected that her only way of getting past that door was to tell the secretary about the subject of the letter. She remembered her father remark a couple of years earlier on that same Peter of Blois having become something of a confidant to Queen Eleanor despite having once penned an appeal, at his then-superior's bidding, chastising the wilful Queen for her abandonment of her royal husband. If her father had been right, her mention of a danger to the Queen's favourite son would find a particularly sympathetic ear.

- There is a letter I… came upon, my lord, - she stammered, reluctant to state plainly that she had stolen it, even though there could be no other explanation. – It was written by His Highness Prince John and intimates matters of grave importance to the King. – she decided that accusing John of contemplating treason was too risky a move. - I wished to bring it to His Grace's attention, - Marian produced the scroll and handed it to the secretary, - and to speak to His Grace, if possible.

The distinguished scholar eyed the vellum suspiciously at first, but when his gaze fell on John's seal still attached to it, Marian caught a welcome glint of recognition.

- I shall inform His Grace, child. Wait here, if you please, - the secretary said before gliding away, and Marian breathed a sigh of relief. All that remained was for the Chief Justiciar to read the missive.

Marian was not surprised, but was nonetheless pleased when the original clerk shuffled hurriedly back to the doorway a short while later, looking relieved to see her still waiting.

- My lady, - he exhaled, - His Grace would like to speak with you.

They passed an airy audience chamber and next to it a long vaulted room, its walls lined with shelves full of heavy leather-bound tomes and boxes holding scrolls. The Chief Justiciar's famous archive, she guessed, having heard from her father about the man's grand quest to document affairs of state. Then the clerk opened another door, and Marian found herself in Hubert Walter's study.

It looked like a continuation of the archive, with the same parchment-laden shelves lining its walls, but this room was smaller and better-lit by a wide lattice window, its panes made of glass squares, a luxury she had seldom seen outside of a cathedral. The study was dominated by a vast writing desk in its middle, behind which, in a chair as high as a throne if not as ornate, sat the Chief Justiciar.

She had known him to be relatively young, and had heard him described by some of John's courtiers as handsome, but the sight of this intense, imposing man still surprised her. While her tastes, she had to confess, ran more toward the dark and brooding variety, Hubert Walter, with his sharp grey eyes set in a resolute face framed by wavy ash blond hair, certainly deserved the epithet. He looked tall, as far as she could conjecture from seeing him seated, and his figure was made even more impressive by the splendid purple cope, lined in ermine and with a sumptuous ermine hood spread on his shoulders. Marian knew this to be an accoutrement of the archbishop's office, but it still brought an unmistakable connotation of royalty. One would almost expect the man to be wearing a crown instead of the square woollen cap of the cleric.

However, underneath the ermine-lined finery, his robes were a plain, sombre black, more like the pragmatic tax collector that he had been branded by his critics than the luxury-loving and self-important archbishop that his predecessor in that office had been. Then again, if there was truth in hearsay, Archbishop Hubert, ever more of an administrator than a scholar, devoted the bulk of his time to his secular duties as Chief Justiciar, often at the expense of theological discourse; a pardonable offence, Marian thought, given the daunting task of ruling a country in its king's absence. Richard may have been brave on the battlefields of Normandy and Acre, but the relative stability and order that England had enjoyed in the past year and a half was almost exclusively the Chief Justiciar's accomplishment. Marian was looking, she realised, at the real man behind the legend of Richard the Lionheart, the Good King.

The Chief Justiciar nodded in acknowledgment of her curtsey and turned to the man beside her.

- Thank you, Albert, this is all for now.

The clerk, thus dismissed, backed out of the room and closed the door.

With a slight trepidation, Marian approached the desk to kiss the massive reliquary ring on the man's hand. But when she looked up at him again, the curiosity in his face unexpectedly put her at ease.

He motioned her to sit, and she pulled a stool closer to the desk.

- I have read the letter… my lady. - Walter said as he held up a scroll, addressing her by a secular title, apparently struggling with the idea of calling her "child" as his religious office would dictate. The letter was Prince John's message to Hugh of Lusignan; Marian had thought it prudent to keep the more dangerous and damning one, the one addressed to Philippe Auguste, as a reserve weapon. – And I would like to know how you came to be in possession of it.

- Your Grace, - Marian did her best to keep her voice level. – I stayed at Windsor Castle for a few weeks this past summer, – she chose not to mention that she had spent half of that time in a dungeon, at least not yet, – While there, I heard a conversation that led me to the whereabouts of this document, and was able to retrieve it.

- How were you able to do so without its intended carrier discovering its loss? – Walter knew of homing pigeons, but couriers of the human variety were far more common in his experience.

- Unfortunately, he did discover it, – she cast her eyes down in the best attempt at Christian remorse, – but I killed him.

The consternation on Walter's face was obvious. He made the sign of the cross before addressing her.

– Murder is a serious crime, not to mention a mortal sin.

- I repent it, Your Grace, - Marian said quietly, - but my supreme concern was for King Richard's safety. I was hoping to take this letter and another one that has been... lost – _best not to say _destroyed_ in case I need to produce it later _– to the king himself or to his allies to warn him of the danger. But I was apprehended and kept in the dungeon at Windsor Castle until three weeks ago.

Appealing to the Chief Justiciar's loyalty to Richard was Marian's best chance to mitigate her crime in the man's eyes. After all, Hubert Walter owed his first significant advancement, the bishopric of Salisbury, to the newly crowned King Richard, and his staunch loyalty to the king ever since had taken him to the Holy Land as the crusaders' chaplain, had made him accept the thankless role of negotiator in the peace talks with Saladin that so many opposed, and had then pushed him to visit Richard in prison and lead the effort to collect the king's enormous ransom even before Richard's recommendation to his mother the regent had elevated him to Archbishop of Canterbury and Chief Justiciar.

As the man's features relaxed, Marian's shoulders slackened in relief. It had worked.

- If the courier's murder was never reported, - Walter mused, the lawman in him bristling at the idea despite his approval of Marian's motives, - how come his disappearance was not questioned?

- He was a Frenchman, Your Grace, - Marian replied. – Raoul Taisson, one of the prince's vassals in his station as Count of Mortain. – He was supposed to leave for France and deliver this letter and the other one addressed to Philippe Auguste.

- Ah. – Walter's keen eyes momentarily unfocused as his mind worked through the facts Marian had supplied.– So it is just as I thought. - He mused aloud undeterred by her presence, connecting the dots as she had once done, except in his case it took much less time. - His Highness is in talks with the French king again, and he no doubt wants to be rid of the young Duke of Brittany so as to be named successor, - he continued as Marian stifled a gasp at his exact guess, - and he will doubtless encourage the rascals at Angouleme and Limoges to attack King Richard himself next. And being here in England keeps him ostensibly away from the fray, and by being far from the king he thinks he can plot with impunity. What an insufferable, self-centred man. – Walter grimaced.- It will take a lot of guidance to turn him into a good ruler, it he is ever suffered to become one, - he finished with a sigh. – But thanks to you, my lady, - he turned his gaze back to Marian, - I now have a chance to rein in his ambitions. His Highness needs a good talking-to. Did you say there was another letter? – his sudden question almost caught Marian unawares.

- There was, Your Grace, I read it before Taisson apprehended me, but I was only able to salvage and conceal this one, - Marian stuck to her story for the time being. – The other one said exactly what you were referring to, it called for a murder of Arthur and named Aymer d'Angouleme as a potential assassin of King Richard... and it also named Renaud de Dammartin as an agent of the prince.

- And the arrogant man thinks he can plot right under my nose and get away with it! – Walter snorted, but Marian could tell that he was stung. In the months between his own return from the crusade and Richard's release from captivity, he had steadfastly opposed the prince's selfish ambition, using all means available to him, from besieging castles to excommunication, to thwart John's plans. Seeing how close the prince had come to outwitting him this time was a bitter pill to swallow for an intelligent and principled man like Walter. – If only I could have that other letter, he would lose his head before he had a chance to beg Queen Eleanor to placate the king again! – he fumed, referring to the dowager queen's well-known involvement in procuring John's pardon. – But I shall make do with what I have. I thank you, my lady, for bringing it to me. I must now take it to Windsor and see to it that the prince learns his lesson. – He started rolling up the documents on his desk, apparently impatient to leave straight away.

- Your Grace, - Marian started forward. – May I ask you something before you go?

- Speak. – His tone was dismissive, and Marian wondered if he was expecting a request for a reward.

- I came here... I had two reasons for coming here, - she fought to sound matter-of-fact. – To bring you this letter and warn you of the treacherous plot it intimates, and... to ask you about the fate of a man whose appointment you recently revoked. – In reality, asking about Guy was her chief reason, but the letter had been the goodwill token and proof of her credentials to get her through the door.

- Who is it? – Walter looked at her intently.

- His name is Sir Guy of Gisborne. – She was puzzled when Walter's face did not seem to register recognition. - Until recently, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

- Ah yes, Gisborne. – it was the justiciar's turn to look puzzled. – I did not dismiss him from office,. – Walter shrugged. – He resigned. But I have no idea of his subsequent fate, or whereabouts.

It took a moment for Marian to collect her thoughts.

- Resigned?! – she could not keep the astonishment from her voice. She had suspected that Guy's departure had come as a result of a confrontation, and least of all thought that it could have been voluntary.

- Indeed. - The justiciar got up from his seat behind the huge desk and walked over to a box of scrolls on a smaller table in a corner. – I have his letter of resignation right here. – he fumbled among the scrolls and, finding the one in question, handed it to Marian.

She read through the short letter incredulously. There it was, in Guy's hand that she remembered from the many passes and orders she had glimpsed during her stay at the castle, a request to be immediately relieved from the duties of the Sheriff of Nottingham and an undertaking to immediately vacate the castle, leaving the armoury in good order and the treasury intact. Then her eyes fell on the date – 22nd day of August – and she froze.

It was Guy's birthday.

It was also the day she had been set free from Windsor.

- Your Grace, - Marian turned to Walter, her eyes pleading, making no attempt to mask her desperation. – May I implore you to... please... let me go to Windsor with you?

- Why?

- There is a question I must ask Prince John... about Lord Gisborne.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**This is the second half of the middle section. Like I say, I need to finish two short sequences before posting the final part but am almost done.**

* * *

- Half an hour, Your Grace. All I need is half an hour.

They had left behind London's muddy and crowded streets and were riding toward Windsor in the Chief Justiciar's roofed carriage. Marian marvelled at the ornate interior, the polished wood, soft tooled leather cushions and the silk brocade curtains, noting that the comfortable coach was perhaps the greatest luxury the pragmatic Hubert Walter had allowed himself.

She had just asked him to give her time alone with John before he spoke to the prince.

- What is it that you intend to do in that time? – Walter's voice was stern. Not surprising, since Marian had told him the story of her recent exploits. Her first visit to Windsor had been marked by an attempted break-in, a murder and a month in the dungeon; her second, by successful theft. No wonder the Chief Justiciar was reluctant to grant her request of time alone with the prince. It was amazing enough that he had agreed to smuggle her in at all and had not forbidden her to wear her outrageous disguise of a nun's habit.

- I swear I shall do nothing to endanger His Highness's life, - she said as gravely as she could. – Or mine, - she added, seeing her companion's concern unabated. – But I need to speak to him about... a personal matter... and I suspect that he may be more willing to do so if we are... unobserved.

- What personal matter?

- I need to find Lord Gisborne, Your Grace. If anyone knows where he is, it is Prince John. And… I need to ask the prince what happened that made him resign, which His Highness may be... reluctant to disclose in your presence.

The justiciar sighed. Despite Marian's assurances and his own inkling that she was unlikely to get in league with the seditious prince, or commit any more criminal acts at that point, he was still wary about letting this Greek firebomb of a woman loose in Windsor Castle. But he owed the proof of John's dealings, the instrument of punishment that would make it possible to render the prince more docile, to that same woman, and he had been powerless to help her in the quest that had brought her, and the precious letter, to his own door. He turned a thoughtful gaze upon Marian.

- Once we are at Windsor, I shall consider your request depending on what we find there. Naturally, if I let you have the time you ask for, I shall hold you to your oath of good conduct. And in doing so I will trust you that the subject of your discourse shall be limited to Lord Gisborne's whereabouts and his resignation.

Marian nodded gravely, trying to hide her anxiety. It was an audacious request, but her venture depended on it.

- Yes, Your Grace. – She chose not to be too specific in answering the Chief Justiciar's admonition. After all, the subject of Guy's resignation was a broad one.

Unknown to her high-ranking ally, Marian's habit concealed a pouch holding copies of John's two letters that she had painstakingly made before coming to London. She had not aimed for perfect forgeries; rather, her aim had been to precisely copy the text to convince Prince John that she was, or had been, in possession of the originals. Likewise unknown to her companion, she had spent the hour's delay in departing from London that he had granted her in preparations he might have found highly undesirable. After hurriedly packing her belongings at the inn into a small chest bought from the innkeeper and changing from her fine silk dress into the grey habit, she called for Allan and gave him a leather pouch to take to the nearest pawn shop.

Allan looked at her intently, feeling the contents through the leather.

- What is it, Maz? – he asked suspiciously.

- It does not matter, Allan. It is... an item of value that will pay for your journey.

They had spent most of the silver she had brought on inns and food, and had just sold the two silver dishes for a handful of coins, but it would not suffice to send Allan on his errand, even without considering the cost of the return trip.

Marian frowned as Allan pulled at the cord and shook the emerald-encrusted ring out into his hand.

- Allan!

- Marian... no. – He sounded shocked, but his voice carried no disapproval.

- Allan, it is just a ring.

Allan nodded, and Marian wondered at the meaning of her own words. _Just a ring_.

Within half an hour, Allan was on his way to Portsmouth, carrying the original Philippe Auguste letter to France, and Marian, with a horse in tow, her chest mounted awkwardly on its back, presented herself at Westminster Palace again. Her instructions to Allan had been to find Archer, who had accompanied Robin and the king, and persuade him – if necessary, bribe him – into arranging for the secret safekeeping of the letter. Knowing Archer's resourcefulness from their brief acquaintance, Marian had high hopes for a successful outcome of this venture, and knowing his pragmatic, if not mercenary, tendencies, she knew that the further rich reward she had told Allan to promise him in her name would be a good incentive, as well as a good deterrent to keep Archer from handing the letter to King Richard prematurely, something that Robin would be certain to do but Marian, given the circumstances, was keen to avoid.

A question from the Chief Justiciar brought her back to the present. They had arrived outside the castle gate, its grey curtain walls and the round keep tinged yellow in the waning afternoon light.

- Why _would_ Gisborne want to resign anyway? – Walter mused aloud, Marian's words having apparently stuck in his mind. – I remember the man now; I saw him once and I remember a couple of reports he sent with the taxes. Competent, if not all that brilliant, and seemed quite pleased to be Sheriff.

Marian hesitated. She was not sure if Walter would think her theory insane, or if it would make him more sympathetic.

- I suspect that he may have been... pressed to resign by His Highness, Your Grace. And I also suspect that... – _oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound_ – it may have had something to do with getting me out of the dungeon.

- If so, shame on John, and a pity for Gisborne. Coming to think of it, His Highness _was_ quite keen on de Ferrers' appointment to Nottingham… this de Ferrers fellow is quite capable though, and well connected, - Walter sighed, - so it would be too much of a bother to replace him. But if you ask me, the sheriffs have had too much power vested in them. In my view they should concern themselves with taxes, and judicial matters should be referred to the guardians of the peace. I have just drawn up an ordinance to this effect, and am convinced that this is the best arrangement.

- I agree with you, Your Grace, - Marian suppressed a sigh of disappointment at hearing Walter's verdict on Guy's departure. _Maybe if I get to talk to John and push him hard enough..._ But she could not let herself be branded a soppy maiden, and continued as if the remark had not affected her. - It is too risky to concentrate the power to dispose of people's lives in the hands of one man, - she almost shuddered as she remembered Vasey. - It can be a great benefit when the Sheriff is a wise one – _like my father_ – but a great danger otherwise. Besides, - she concluded, - if the tax collection and the councils are to be run properly, it leaves little time for judicial hearings.

- How come you are so well informed about these matters? The Chief Justiciar eyed her with fresh curiosity.

- My father was a sheriff, Your Grace.

- Which shire?

- The same, Your Grace. Nottingham.

- He was not the one that Gisborne... – he hesitated at the word _killed_.

- No, Your Grace. That was Vasey, an evil man if there ever was one. Gisborne... did the right thing about him. No, my father was Vasey's predecessor, and rumour has it that Prince John received sacks of money from Vasey and cornered Longchamp into approving him as my father's replacement.

- How could your father possibly let you come to London alone? – Walter asked suddenly, assuming from Marian's remark about her father's retirement that he was still alive.

- He was killed two years ago, Your Grace. Vasey had him imprisoned, and he was killed when he tried to escape.

Walter made the sign of the cross and fell silent for a moment.

- So by confronting His Highness you are avenging your father's death and standing up for Gisborne in one fell swoop? – he asked eventually.

Marian ventured a timid smile. She had not quite seen it that way but there was a measure of poetic justice to it.

- You could say so, Your Grace.

By then they had passed the gate, and having disembarked in the main courtyard, the castle guards too much in awe of the distinguished visitor to look closely at his humble companion, had walked up the spiral stairs and stopped just outside John's study, the Chief Justiciar having sent a guard to alert the prince.

Well then, - Walter shrugged as he gestured for Marian to go inside, - so long as the prince stays alive, you can have your half hour.

*

Prince John was in a jolly good mood. He had just come back from an entertaining hunt – the quarry consisted only of a pair of stags, but he had enjoyed the company of the lovely Agnes de Ferrers who had ridden along with him and besides, had been greatly amused by the spectacle of the rather haughty Lady de Freyne, who had previously resisted his advances, tumbling from her horse. Now, just back from the hunting lodge and the merriment and toasts that had celebrated the conclusion of the outing, he had the evening banquet to look forward to, and he sauntered into his chambers at a brisk pace, calling for a change of clothes – only to be informed by his seneschal in a sombre voice that the Chief Justiciar was waiting for him in his study.

John grimaced; the man had been the bane of his existence before his brother's return, almost single-handedly responsible for the failure of John's great designs on the crown. Yet the prince had been unable to summon the resolve to plot the man's assassination. Perhaps it was his early childhood memory of the backlash against his father for the killing of an archbishop that he had not even ordered that John, in his desire to be loved by his subjects, was eager to avoid – Becket's martyrdom had provoked an outrage and forever tainted his father's image. Or it could have been Hubert Walter's preternatural ability to always stay a step ahead of the game that gave him pause; John feared that any such attempt would be discovered and foiled at a great cost to himself. Perhaps it was even grudging respect for the man's abilities as a statesman and the thought that someday, John might need someone like him to help him govern the country. Whatever it was, John did not meddle in Hubert Walter's affairs and did his best to stay out of his line of sight. Now that his political plans that had seemed so close to fruition had been put on hold by an unfortunate turn of events, the prince was especially anxious not to anger a powerful adversary.

For the demise of Raoul Taisson had shaken John's confidence too much for him to continue his bold games right away. The ensuing halt in John's correspondence with the French king had apparently diverted Philippe Auguste's attention away from John's plots back to the Normandy campaign, the cunning Philippe probably thinking it likely that Richard could be defeated in battle, thus obliterating the need of an alliance with John. While John had been eager to reassure his would-be royal ally, he had been too frightened by Taisson's death and the issue of the missing letters to do so. The story the Lady of Knighton had told him about Taisson destroying the letters seemed solid enough; but he would never know for certain, as all that was discovered in the fireplace of Taisson's room was a heap of burnt vellum scraps and a pool of molten wax that gave him no certainty as to which documents those had been. The other story his prisoner had told him about her motives had also seemed plausible, but John could not forget that she was also betrothed to one of Richard's minions and apparently acquainted with the king himself. In his despair born of rampant fear and thwarted ambition, John was torn between wanting to have the woman executed one day as a dangerous witness and fearing the consequences the next day as he imagined his brother inquiring after her fate. In the end, he kept her in the dungeon and fretted and waited – until Gisborne showed up and offered him if not peace of mind, then at least a way to make a modicum of profit out of his predicament. By demanding Gisborne's resignation from Nottinghamshire, he opened it for a nobleman he had recently but enthusiastically befriended – who rather inconveniently happened to be married to his current mistress, herself a distinguished Occitan lady of noble blood. By procuring this coveted appointment for William he was simultaneously doing him a great favour and making sure that he was safely away in Nottingham, while the delectable Agnes, under the pretext of packing her household for the cumbersome move, stayed on in Windsor, free to keep the prince company. But even though John was quite pleased with himself for having thought of this clever arrangement, his greater ambitions had suffered a serious setback.

John dragged his feet to his study, his carefree mood of the afternoon all but gone. Whatever had brought Hubert Walter to Windsor, it had to be bad news for him. Still, John put on a broad smile and spread his arms theatrically as he entered the chamber.

- Bless me, Father, for I have sinned! – he announced, knowing that he was inviting criticism for his mockery of a sacred rite, but unable to resist the temptation of a good quip.

But the words that answered him were not the rebuke he had expected. And the voice that had uttered them was nothing like Hubert Walter's dry baritone.

- You have, Your Highness. You have indeed.

*

He wondered if he had somehow fallen asleep and was seeing a nightmare, for instead of the Chief Justiciar, the figure in front of him was wearing a nun's habit but had the face that had haunted him for weeks.

The Lady of Knighton.

- You? – he stammered. – Lady... Margaret?

- Marian, - she corrected coolly, and John shivered, though he was confused as to why he should worry about mixing up her given name. The woman had been paid for and set free and should be out of his life forever, hopefully duly chastised and frightened. What was she doing in his study, then, wearing a habit and eyeing him with smug curiosity? He was tempted to call the guards, but something in her calm expression was downright unnerving, making him hesitate.

- Have you taken holy orders? – he questioned her, encouraged by a sudden guess.

- Only for tonight, Your Highness. But before you do anything rash in the belief that I am here unlawfully, - she continued in the same cool, measured tone, seeing as his head jerked back looking for the guards, - there are two or three things you may want to know. First, Hubert Walter is indeed here. He is waiting in the chamber next door and will join us soon. _How_ soon depends on how much danger you are craving. Second, he has the original of this, - she handed the prince a piece of vellum.

A quick scan showed it to be a faithful copy of John's letter to Hugh of Lusignan. The prince tried in vain to suppress the surging panic when he realised that she had not finished.

– Third, - the woman went relentlessly on, - if anything happens to me now or later, the Chief Justiciar will have _this_, and your brother will very soon have its original that is well on its way to France as we speak. – she rolled open another scroll, holding it just out of John's reach, but he did not need to read it to know what it was. – However, we have half an hour to discuss these matters, - she concluded with a smile that sent a chill down John's back, - before the Chief Justiciar joins us, and it may be that in the meantime we shall come to a different arrangement.

For a few moments, John's handsome face was a hideous grimace of fear and impotent fury. When he at last composed himself, he gritted his next question through his teeth.

- What is it you want?

- I want... answers to a few questions, - she chose her words carefully, - and I may have a few... requests afterwards.

- You want to blackmail me, - John spat.

- No more than you blackmailed Guy of Gisborne when he came to you and you made him resign from his post, - Marian countered.

-I did not blackmail him! - John's voice was seething with petulant bitterness. – He freely agreed to give it up. It was your ransom!

*

Marian had figured this out already, but she was still shaken at hearing the blunt admission. All the evidence had been pointing to it, but it was simply too incredible to assume that Guy would have voluntarily given up something that he had cherished for years to save a woman he had no more designs on, so much so that he did not even care to make it known to her that he had rescued her. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and it was only her anger toward John that kept her from crumbling down then and there.

- The post of the Sheriff of Nottingham was the price that Gisborne paid for freeing me? – she repeated in a steady voice. It was more of a ploy for time than a question, but the answer still surprised her.

- That, and four thousand marks, - John muttered, his fear apparently running so strong as to have robbed him of reason. _Or else he would have figured out_, thought Marian with grim satisfaction, _that he has just made himself poorer again_.

- And for that you agreed to set me free?

- Yes, - John shook his head irritably, belatedly realising his lapse. – And I let you keep your land.

- In exchange for Gisborne giving up his manor, - Marian rejoined.

- Yes! – John hissed. He was fuming, seeing as he was sinking deeper with every word. - But before you bewail your precious Gisborne, you should know that I granted him a manor at Lamorna. And you should also know that he tried to stop my... – John halted abruptly, suddenly aware that the word _coronation_ was really uncalled for, considering the letter that Marian was holding. – _And_ he once held a sword to my neck! – he finished indignantly.

- You have my full commiseration, Your Highness, - Marian responded with a tight-lipped smile. – Now, where exactly would this manor of Lamorna be?

- As if you did not know, - he snorted. – As if you were not in league with your lover!

- Believe it or not, - Marian replied sternly, surprised that John's words had offended her more because they were not true than because they contained an accusation of sin, – we are not lovers. And I have no idea where the manor is... – she made a good show of reading her copy of the letter to Philippe – but I am very interested in finding out.

- Cornwall, - John flung the word at her as if it were a curse.

- Thank you, Your Highness.

She paused. It was going well so far, but to get everything she wanted out of this encounter, she needed to scale down the hostilities, probably even call a truce.

– Forgive me for my... impolite intrusion, - she presently continued, eliciting another snort from John. – I know that it looks most unlikely, but I assure you that I want nothing more than to be your ally. I am merely concerned about your safety, and have your best interests at heart in this matter.

– And yours, naturally, - John added resentfully.

- Mine and Gisborne's.

- And you dare assert that you are not lovers? – John looked offended, as if she had insulted his intelligence.

- We are not, I swear. –_At least I can swear to it, whether or not I am pleased with it_. – I am... indebted to him.

John smirked. Whatever games the woman was playing with regards to Gisborne were probably none of his concern. Unlike getting out of this quandary with his head attached.

- So, - he asked again, though in a voice less venomous and more resigned, - what is it you want?

- I want to make sure that Your Highness is safe and secure in your station as the Count of Mortain and royal heir, and that you remain on the best of terms with your brother Richard. - She tried to infuse her voice with respect that she did not feel.

- And to that end, you have sent my brother the letter that you stole from me, - John said darkly.

_Detestable or not_, Marian mused, _he has to be complimented on his sense of_ _irony_.

- I have sent it to France, Your Highness, - she tried to soften her voice, - as a precautionary measure. After all, it would be dangerous to have that sort of document bearing your seal lying around. But I do not necessarily intend to have it delivered to the king.

- Why would that be? – John asked gloomily.

- Because I would not want to aggrieve you needlessly, - she said smoothly, and even though both knew it to be a lie, John was forced to smirk. – And because I value my life, and just as the delivery of that letter to King Richard would be... undesirable for you, it would also be dangerous for me.

- How so? – John seemed intrigued.

- I am certain that your brother loves you very much, - she began obliquely, - and while the receipt of that message would greatly aggrieve him, I am sure that his... disappointment would be temporary. But in the meantime, knowing the provenance of the letter, I suspect that... some of your friends may be enticed to... avenge your hardships on the person who occasioned them.

- In other words, - John translated her sophisticated hints, - you fear that my brother may not kill me, and I will be able to arrange your murder out of spite?

Marian smirked.

- I would not quite put it so... harshly, Your Highness, knowing you to be a noble and kind-hearted prince, - she struggled to keep her face straight as John looked genuinely pleased with the outrageous flattery, - but I fear that your supporters may take a rather... radical view of things.

- So you intend to keep the letter in France as a standing threat to me.

- I believe it is best in the interests of... safekeeping. This way, everything stays as it is. You are safe, your brother is safe – as safe as he may be considering that he is waging a war – and I have no reasons to fear for my life, for if anything were to happen to me – _or_ Gisborne, - she added pointedly, - I have arrangements in place that shall lead to the delivery of the letter.

- And that would be all you desire? – John was too shrewd to think that her demands ended there.

- Almost all, Your Highness. – Marian cast down her eyes in an imitation of modesty. – Considering that I conducted myself... inappropriately at your court, and considering that your name was... needlessly implicated in some... dubious dealings, all I desire is to restore the state of affairs to a point before all these unfortunate events took place. There is little that remains to bring it about; I am free, thanks to your gracious decision, and you and your brother love each other as warmly as ever, - she noticed the curiosity in John's face as he wondered where she was going with that. – All that remains is for Lord Gisborne to receive his four thousand marks and the office of the Sheriff of Nottingham, - oh, and the manor of Clifton, and everything will be in place.

For the first time since the beginning of this bizarre audience, Marian saw unadulterated panic in John's face.

- I cannot do it! – the words tumbled helplessly from his lips. – After Gisborne resigned I... petitioned the Chief Justiciar to give the post to William de Ferrers, a very distinguished young gentleman...

- ...whose wife happens to be your very distinguished... companion, Your Highness? – Marian interrupted coldly.

- That has nothing to do with it! – protested John, but the blush crept up onto his cheeks. – de Ferrers was all but promised this appointment by my brother even before we met... and if you must know, his wife's family are important vassals of mine... and I spent four hundreds marks from the four thousand that Gisborne gave me, - he finished limply.

Marian paused to collect her thoughts. She was disappointed to hear about the Sheriff's position, and knew that with the Nottingham posting set to stay in Ferrers' hands, the chances of Guy getting another appointment as Sheriff were slim. Even though Hubert Walter had eventually remembered him for a competent official, he had a long list of candidates vying for these positions, and Gisborne, who had received his appointment in a freak turn of events and had now been seen to resign, was unlikely to get to the top of the list too soon. Then again, rather than fight an uphill battle for an unattainable goal, perhaps she could use her advantage to secure a different sort of payoff.

- It is... most regrettable, Your Highness, - she sighed, seemingly unwilling to let John off the hook, - but as our time is drawing to a close and it would be unfortunate to keep His Grace waiting, perhaps we can move on to the final point that may help settle the matter. As we know, Lord Gisborne also gave up the manor of Clifton when he resigned.

- Oh, he can have it back! – John exclaimed with palpable relief.

- I was not thinking of Clifton, - Marian countered, tapping her sleeve with the vellum she held in her other hand, - after all, it is but a small manor and we have to consider that Lord Gisborne has given up a very important post. I was thinking... – she pretended to study the ceiling, - that as Your Highness has recently had some of your lands restored to you, a bigger manor within one of your holdings – say, twenty hides? – would be more... commensurate.

She knew twenty hides to be a rather outrageous request; she had known of earls holding estates smaller than that. Locksley, for that matter, was hardly bigger than a dozen; Knighton, about ten.

Not surprisingly, John bristled.

- It is an impossible request, my lady! In all the tracts I have been given back, I could hardly think of an unoccupied manor of more than six hundred acres!

- An unfortunate turn of events indeed, Your Highness, - Marian commented, eyeing him sarcastically. – For I may just be forgetful enough in my distress to leave this document in plain view when His Grace joins us, - she twirled the vellum, and for a moment feared that John might wrestle her for it, but the prince only hissed in frustration.

- Ten, - he gritted.

- Fifteen, Your Highness.

- Twelve.

- Deal, - she said, pretending to be reluctant, though in reality it was about as much as she could hope for.

-It will not be in Nottinghamshire, though, - John added quickly, anxious to keep her from arguing again. – The closest estate I have that big is in Leicestershire.

Marian suppressed a smile. The prince was positively becoming a pleasure to deal with.

- It is of no consequence, Your Highness, so long as it is twelve hides and given to Gisborne.

- He will have it.

- And the money.

- Three thousand six hundred marks.

- If that is what is left, - Marian feigned disappointment.

- Is that all? – John sounded hopeful.

- And my carriage that you confiscated, - she could not help adding.

- And your carriage. Now can I have the letter?

- You will have it, Your Highness, the moment that I have the money and the deed to the estate. But I would suggest for the sake of procedure that these are handed over in His Grace's presence. So as to make sure I do not misappropriate them, given that His Grace shall be bearing witness, - she added quickly, though both knew that it was duplicity on John's part that she was safeguarding against.

- You are not going to...

- I shall wait for the right moment when His Grace is... otherwise occupied, - Marian assured him. – As for the letter he has come here to... discuss, - she took half a step closer to John, still keeping her distance but mimicking the manner of a loyal confidante, - I am certain that His Grace will understand that it was just an unfortunate comment on the state of the Normandy campaign that was... worded in such a confusing manner as to be easily misinterpreted, and that you were merely concerned for your brother's well-being and wanted to... rally his allies to your joint cause.

- Indeed, - John sighed. Whatever the meeting with the Chief Justiciar had in store, he was so shaken and exhausted by his conversation with Marian that he could not think how it could be any worse than that. – And how shall I explain all this... bounty that is to befall Gisborne? – he grumbled.

- Reward for the good services he rendered as Sheriff of Nottingham, - Marian answered smoothly. She chose not to mention that Hubert Walter must have understood the real turn of events all too well; there was nothing wrong, after all, with keeping up appearances so long as justice was served. – Now, Your Highness, shall we ask His Grace to come in?

*

The meeting was mercifully brief; John had understood from his conversation with Marian that his position was too precarious to leave room for anything but thinly veiled retreat. He expected a sound rebuke for the letter, and received it, but his contrite manner, coupled with the excuse Marian had supplied, had served to soon steer the conversation into a more conciliatory vein.

It was dangerous, the Chief Justiciar said, to give rise to any false impression of hostility between himself and his brother, and it would be prudent to avoid any liaisons or missives that could be thus misconstrued. Everyone present understood what was really being said and what warnings were being given, and it seemed that the prince was sufficiently convinced of the risk of contemplating fratricide given the outstanding evidence against him that could be readily produced. In the end, John declared that his long stay in England had made him rather miss his castle at Mortain, and to Marian's secret amusement and Hubert Walter's open approval, announced that he would soon depart for Normandy. _So that he can better insinuate himself into Richard's confidence_, Marian guessed, _in case his treasonous dealings are exposed. Well, that letter should be safe in Archer's care should I need it, and meanwhile I got what I wanted... for now_.

At Marian's reminder – not that it had been necessary – John called for his treasurer and a scribe, and a short while later a chest of gold was brought in, the coins laboriously counted and the deed to the Leicestershire estate of Huncote drafted, and the matter of Gisborne and the ransom was concluded to John's chagrin and Marian's great satisfaction.

The meeting finished, Marian picked up the deed, and told the servants that John had summoned to put the money chest into her reclaimed carriage before ceremoniously kneeling at the prince's feet.

- Your humble servant forever, Your Highness, - she made a show of respectfully kissing John's hand. As she bent down and her long hair cascaded to hide John's hand from view, she slipped the tightly rolled vellum into the sleeve of his tunic before standing up and flashing the prince a triumphant smile. John nodded at her, relief apparent in his face. _No need to tell him that__I have hidden a second copy under the floorboards of the inn at Windsor hamlet. Not yet, at least._

She was happy. She felt free, proud, powerful.

This was so much better than playing the Nightwatchman.

*

- Where are you going now, Lady Marian? – the Chief Justiciar asked when they were out in the courtyard. She had changed clothes and was once more wearing her dress, the masquerade over.

- Cornwall, - she answered simply.

- Gisborne, - he ventured.

- Yes, Your Grace.

- Seeing as you are going on a long journey and carrying a chest full of gold, - he continued, - I would suggest that you take two of my guards with you. – They had travelled to Windsor with an escort of four mounted guards, and by dividing their number the Chief Justiciar made sure that Marian was not defenceless while maintaining decorum and prudent security for himself.

- Thank you, Your Grace, for all your kindness to me. – She knelt to kiss his hand.

- You deserve it despite your rash actions, child, - he used the churchman's form of address to her for once, - for your purity of heart redeems you.

Moments later, having bid Hubert Walter a respectful farewell and received a warm final blessing, Marian climbed into her carriage and settled down on the cushions. Her life seemed to be going in circles; a year before she had embarked on a trip to see Guy that had started almost exactly like that and had brought her heartbreak. Would this time be any different? _It _is_ different_, she smirked, _I have a new carriage now. And _I_ am different too_, she mused as the carriage rolled out of the gate, wondering if she would ever have to come back to Windsor Castle. It had been a fateful place for her, witness alike to her closest brush with death and to her dizzying moment of triumph in the face of the greatest challenge.

She sighed.

_No, not the greatest_. _This has been the easy part. Time to face the real challenge now._

_._

_End of Part II_

_._


	4. Chapter 4

**I promised to finish it soon, didn't I?**

**I change the character PoV in my final chapter –at the same time as I give in to the temptation of trying my hand at writing present-tense. I actually wanted to make a noticeable shift in the narrative; whether the result is too jarring or fits the change of perspective is up to you to judge. I hope, in any case, that you find it entertaining.**

**Ratings note: I am fairly certain that I did not stray beyond what would be a mild R here; but if ffnet's T is much more strict than that, I suggest that anyone who wants to stick to the T stop reading at the asterisk line three quarters down – when I started writing the story I did not think of it straying into M-ish territory, but in the end could not help rolling with the plot ;) **

* * *

The sun squanders its pale light onto the bleak landscape, a windswept expanse of plains and cliffs and the silvery grey sea beyond, and Guy watches impassively from the stable gate at Lamorna as the late October afternoon fades away. He has groomed his horse after the customary ride and chuckles as he hears the beast snorting contentedly in between mouthfuls of hay. He could have ordered the stable boy to do it – poorer as he is, Guy still owns a handful of servants – but he prefers the horse's company to that of the peasants, and for a while it has taken his mind away from being alone, from being relegated to a meagre scrap of land and a manor house the size of a barn, and from having nothing left in life to look forward to. Yet he has no regrets; he knows, for once, that he has done the right thing.

*

Perhaps it was preordained on the day, four years earlier, when he first set eyes on the melancholy and seemingly bashful daughter of the old sheriff and felt his breath catch as if he were on the verge of a precipice. He must have not noticed as he fell, only realising it when his heart was shattered on the rocks below.

She had captivated him with her beauty, her well-bred restraint and polished speech, but there was always something else that kept him riveted and curious, and drew him to seek her company though she showed plainly that she did not desire it – an undertone of irreverence, of recklessness, the sense of a wild creature barely kept in check by her father and by what society expected of her, but always restless, always free underneath the demure exterior. And Guy, never truly free since his parents had died, always constrained to do others' bidding, however loathsome, so as to secure a place in life, envied her that secret freedom and longed to get closer to her even as she pushed him away.

Two tumultuous years later, after they had played and betrayed and fought and saved each other, when it finally seemed that she had accepted him, when he had seen the perilous and infuriating extent of her freedom stare at him from beneath the Nightwatchman's mask, and had accepted _her_ at that, when he had lulled himself into believing that her childish infatuation with Hood was over and had even dared hope that she was no longer indifferent to _him_, she broke his trust again. Granted, he was about to embark on a dastardly venture under Vasey's command. But he had come too far along with the sheriff's scheme to back out at the last moment, and at any rate it was not Marian's place to endanger herself even as he was pondering ways of getting rid of Vasey somewhere on that voyage. A ship at sea was a treacherous place, after all; who would know if it had been a momentary fit of dizzinesss or a well-placed shove that had sent a man overboard? But before any of that could come to pass, Marian had rushed in with her ill-conceived attack and had only succeeded in imprisoning both of them, herself overtly and Guy nominally free but guilty by association and increasingly under Vasey's suspicious eye. He was furious at her, but even in the wretched days of their journey to Portsmouth he kept watching out for a possibility of escape for them both, hoping against hope that she would stay with him if they could get away from Vasey.

Just then, she ran to Hood.

At first he was too angry to feel the pain; while part of him also resented himself for being so loathsome to Marian as to have driven her to escape, he channelled his anger into a renewed cold ambition, viciously imagining the successful coup they were soon to bring about, relishing the power and wealth that would soon be his. Until all that, too, was gone, smashed against the cliffs of the Algarve coast. He had hoped at least that Vasey would drown; after he made his own way to shore in the near-darkness, he was left in that delusion until dawn, only to be newly disappointed at hearing the man's growling and barking in the cold morning air. But it no longer mattered; with the grand plan in ruins and his ambitions crushed, he stopped caring altogether. He bore Vasey's taunts and insults with seeming indifference, too busy keeping himself from publicly falling apart.

For that was what it came to when feeling had returned; with Marian gone to join his enemy, the thread that had held him together and kept him going from one day to another had been severed, and his existence had dissolved into a sequence of meaningless events, lost in a haze of pain that refused to subside. He had told himself all sorts of things, that he hated her, that she was dead to him, that they had never been meant to be – until the next drunken bout would wrench the tears from his eyes and her name from his lips, and in his delirious fantasies he would see her leaving Hood and coming to him, stupid dreams that would be shattered the following morning. But in the end, the pain became his salvation, the only sensation that filled the void when he realised he had lost his onetime taste for violence and was too disgusted with himself to keep drinking. It became part of his life, part of his being, the only constant that he could rely on, until it no longer mattered what events had brought it about. It became so ubiquitous that he gradually stopped noticing and could almost go on living. By the time he was finally rid of Vasey a few months later, he had told himself that the time, full of promise and desperation, when Marian had ruled his world had long passed. He had locked away the memories, and was determined to relish the pride and prestige that came with his newly gained power and never again let himself give in to foolish emotion. Fate seemed to eye him benignly; he was able to hold on to his post upon Richard's return, and the duties of office had filled his days and left him mercifully exhausted every evening.

But the ghost of the woman refused to go away.

He had almost hoped to hear the news of her wedding. That would be the last line of the heartrending ballad, the coup-de-grace that would liberate him even as it brought a final stab of anguish. Then she would be well and truly lost, gone, hopefully away to France with Locksley in his pursuit of fresh ambition under Richard's wing. But Locksley had left alone, and Marian was still there, an aching wound that woke him up at night to a keen sense of heartbreak and longing.

It was the guilt, he decided, about the wrongs he had committed; and the memory of Marian would forever torment him unless he expiated his sins before her, the chief of which had been the destruction of Knighton Hall. So he had reminded King Richard of the need to restore the property to its rightful owner, and had reminded him again in a letter when it seemed as if the king had forgotten, and having at last obtained a written notice authorising the deed, he regained a measure of peace and composure thinking that then, at last, he would settle his accounts with Marian as much as he was able to. He was so confident of this blissful finality that he had looked forward to seeing Marian at the Council of Nobles, if only to prove to himself, once and for all, that he was immune to her.

It had failed miserably.

From the second he had laid eyes on her, he knew that the pain, and the desperate need of her, had never gone away. It was only his anger at seeing as she looked ready to calmly deploy her wily arts against him once more that had saved him from becoming a public spectacle and had turned his pain into an opportune façade of icy indifference. Yet his victory was short-lived and gave way to fresh despair as he fought in vain to chase her away from his thoughts after the meeting, reminding himself that the woman had made her choice in favour of Locksley and had never loved him. Still, he persevered in his duties, even though the solace offered by his secure position had by then become an empty notion. But he held on to the semblance of stability, trusting it to keep him sane.

Half a year later, it all came crashing down again.

His first thought upon hearing the news of Marian's imprisonment had been vindication, albeit with a heavy aftertaste of guilt. _Serves her right_, he had said to Allan, and for a few moments his anger at her deceitful schemes and crafty tactics felt entirely justified as she had apparently fallen into the trap laid by her own plotting. But after he had sent Allan away and through the endless hours of the sleepless night that followed, his anguish at the thought of Marian, helpless and alone, locked away in a dungeon awaiting punishment or death, gave way to sinking dread and ultimately to grim resolve. Whatever Marian had done had sufficed to put her behind bars, and it was probably only the beginning of her ordeal. He knew John to be a selfish, vindictive coward; with Marian's strongest supporters far away and her former outlaw friends lacking any political clout, the prince might not hesitate to use her to satisfy his lust, or to take out his frustration with Richard on her by having her tortured, or to have her killed to allay his fears. Even is Guy could stifle his pride enough to write to Richard, or Locksley, to appraise them of the danger she was in, the help would most likely arrive too late. And the time spent waiting for it would drive him insane.

He might try to resent Marian all he wanted; he might tell the entire world that he did not care about her; he even might have come close to believing it himself – but now that she was in danger, there was no choice to speak of and no room for hesitation. He might mean nothing to her, but he would still do whatever he could to save her. Even if it was saving her so that she could go back to Hood.

At first light the next day, he was ready to leave. He told Allan and the others the convenient story of taking the tax money to the Chief Justiciar, which was largely true except for the tiny detail of him sending the guards and the money on to London on their own when they had reached Watford, and continuing to Windsor instead, carrying two heavy sacks of gold coins in the saddlebags – all his savings from the past few years, meant to buy land and build a decent home in the Gisborne name someday – hoping that it would suffice to bribe and placate John into letting her go.

Even as he hoped for it, he knew John too well to suspect that it would not work. There is nothing sweeter to a coward than tormenting a weakened enemy that has been delivered under his control by circumstance. John, a coward par excellence, revelled in the chance to hurt and humiliate Guy, who had once frightened him with his proud, disdainful disobedience. Of course the money was not enough; after a barrage of offhand insults and a good deal of self-serving evil mirth that had put the late Vasey to shame, John had casually doubled the vast sum Guy had offered as the price of Marian's freedom. To Guy's plea that the money he had brought was all he had, John suggested, with malicious cheer, that Guy procure the rest from tax proceeds, or else sell his post as Sheriff to him for the remainder of the ransom. And so the bargain was struck. The money Guy had brought would serve to guarantee Marian's life and safety for a month, within which time Guy was to return with the rest or resign from his position, and the prince would free Marian upon receiving either the gold or the resignation letter.

It offered Guy an impossible choice. The idea of giving up his position was utterly humiliating. Still, using tax money to pay for Marian's ransom was an even surer way to lose his post, and to do so dishonourably. The Chief Justiciar had established such an iron grip over England's tax collection that the missing money, or an arbitrarily raised but undisclosed tax if Guy took that route, would be immediately discovered and would serve to condemn him to prison or the axe. When he left Windsor it was with a bitter sense of regret but with a heart less heavy, already knowing that he was about to give up his life's quest but hoping that it would save the woman who still meant the world to him, deny it as he might. The two days he spent in Nottingham were barely enough to pack up his things and set the shire's affairs in order before leaving again. He could not even retain Clifton, even if he had wanted to; giving up the manor was John's price for letting Marian keep Knighton. The prince's only concession had been to grant him this paltry estate in a God-forsaken corner of Cornwall in exchange for keeping the whole matter under wraps.

He saw her leave the Windsor courtyard the day he resigned. He had all but forgotten about his birthday that fell on that date. Unnoticed by her, he stood at a castle window, John leering by his side, and watched as the woman he loved looked upon the outside world for the first time in a month, and went away to freedom. She did not know it yet – John's elaborate cruelty had ensured that Marian would be told of her salvation at the last possible moment – but Guy could not help a wistful, tortured smile while his gaze followed her as far as he could see out of the castle gate, convinced that this was the last time he had set eyes on her. She would be off to France, for certain; even if she stayed in England, she would be halfway across the country from him, hundreds of miles away. When she found out about a new sheriff in Nottingham she might wonder but probably not enough to investigate, and the manner of his departure had ensured that such queries would remain unanswered. Then again, who was he deceiving? She would most likely rejoice.

It would be for the best. He did not want her to know what he had done; he had not done it to procure a reaction from her, but because he could not have lived with himself otherwise. If he loved her still it was his curse, his cross to bear. Her love he could not have; anything else she could offer in return - friendship, pity, gratitude - he did not need. Yet he had a reason to be grateful to Marian. The woman must have been destined to be his punishment and his redemption, the fire that had destroyed him but left the strongest part of him intact. In giving up all that he had striven for – power, position, wealth - and in making the final sacrifice of letting her go, he had attained the freedom that he had once so envied her.

*

_Where __to now_, he wonders wistfully. He could stay in this place, get used to it, even learn to like it eventually, but the prospect of a long and empty life does not appeal to him. Better end it soon, while he is still young and vigorous and quick with his sword and can go in a blaze of glory. He will go to the Continent, or to the Holy Land – anywhere except France, for that is where Richard and Locksley are and that is where _she_ will likely go, and he does not need the old heartbreak to permeate his last days. It could be tricky to avoid France, the principal battlefield, but with the human race ever intent on its own destruction, eventually he will have no difficulty finding a mercenary's job commanding a band of horsemen or the defences of a frontier castle, hopefully paying well enough to make the short remainder of his life enjoyable. He smiles mirthlessly at the prospect. It might not be what he once wanted, but it is certainly what he deserves.

- Guy? – the unmistakable voice cuts into his thoughts.

_Great. It has finally happened. I am hallucinating the woman._

He turns and starts, for the ghost is so lifelike it could be real. Then she takes a step toward him, her skirts rustling as they sweep the grass in the untended courtyard, and he notices the circles under her eyes, her thinner frame, the dress she is wearing – one he has not seen, a shimmering greyish-blue silk, the colour of hazy morning sky – and it dawns on him, amid growing bewilderment, that she _must _be real.

It makes him angry. He does not want her to see him wearing his old leathers and living in this barn of a house, a wreck of a man who has nothing left to live for, no solace but the memory of one good deed.

- Marian, what are you doing here? – he has managed to infuse his voice with all the hostility he can muster, and it makes him proud before he realises how stupid it sounds.

_Perhaps she decided to take a detour en route to Portsmouth –__ out of the way though it is – before she sails to France._

- Come to say goodbye? – he taunts as she hesitates, ignoring how his own voice catches in his throat.

- No, Guy, I just wanted to... _see you_, - she wants to say, but he interrupts her.

- You just wanted to gloat, - he concludes grimly, – behold the former Sheriff of Nottingham, paying penance for his sins at last, - he spreads his arms, his face a broken parody of a smile. Just as he thought he was free from pain and could put not only Marian but his whole life behind him, she has come to torment him again.

But her expression has none of the wide-eyed artifice he had so long mistaken for interest, none of the hovering half-smile he had imagined to be warm when it was little more than smug. She is deadly serious, and when she answers her voice is very quiet.

- I did not come to gloat. Guy, I know what you did, and I came to...

Again, it is too much to bear. Gratitude or pity, whichever it is, is equally unwelcome. He would have preferred gloating, given the choice.

- You came to thank me, then. I do not ask for your gratitude, Marian, - he clenches his hand into a tight fist, as if trying to strangle the pain so that his voice would stay cold and level, - whatever sort of payback you may have in mind, I do not need it, or your pity, for that matter, - he adds, mistaking her expression for pity, not seeing in his own distress that it is pure pain at the rejection he is meting out to her in harsh words.

She knows that she should have expected this; she told herself at the outset, remembering their previous meeting, that Guy's first reaction would most likely be _this_, even though his recent conduct where she was concerned would suggest a very different attitude. But as her journey neared its destination she became progressively more excited to a point where she swept her reservations aside and gave in to unfettered daydreaming. So now, after imagining a dozen perfect scenes of her flying into Guy's arms, she struggles not to show that the reality hurts. She is not about to give in; it would take a lot more than that to dissuade her; but she is taken aback at the reminder of how daunting her task is.

Guy takes her pause for acquiescence, thinking that he has finally seen through her game. _Better end it now, and end it quickly, than go through the pointless anguish of polite phrases._

- I thank you for your effort of coming here, Marian, whatever brought you. But there is no need for you to spend any more time on this errand. You can spend the night in the house if you wish, - he adds hastily, realising belatedly how rude he must have sounded, sending her away at sunset, - but I am sure that your friends – and your husband, – he adds pointedly, even though she is not yet married to Hood to his knowledge, - are anxious to have you safely back with them. – He is angry at himself for the _husband_ quip but he could not help it; he needs to see her reaction, though he has no idea why.

- I am not married, - she says icily, and he struggles not to smirk, but checks himself and rolls his eyes instead.

- You may not be _officially_ married... – he begins, and is surprised at her vehemence as she cuts in.

- What is _that_ supposed to mean?!

- You have made your choice, Lady Marian, - by the time he speaks he has mastered himself well enough to have chased away any inklings of hope that her denial of marriage may have provoked. – Married or not, you have cast your lot with Hoo – with Lord Locksley, - he corrects himself, and the title reminds him of his present humble state, - and it looks as if you have made a wise, provident choice after all, - he continues, forgetting that Marian had seemed happy to choose Hood even when he was a destitute outlaw. Somehow, when he remembers that, it only hurts more.

He is again surprised to see Marian infuriated.

- You _pushed_ me to make it! – she flings the words at him, listening helplessly as her own voice betrays the bitterness. – You lied to me about the King when we were to marry; did you think I would never find out? – she never acknowledged how much the revelation had rankled, choosing instead to relish the giddy memory of her escape with Robin, but now the wound is out in the open.

And her outburst finally breaks through Guy's veneer of indifference.

- I did not know it was a falsehood! – he shouts before he forces his voice down. – Vasey told me of the King's return as if it were real and only admitted the truth of the impostor two weeks later, two days before the wedding date. And as soon as I found out I wanted to tell you! I came to Knighton Hall at once to speak to you, but you were too ill to listen, - he continues, forgetting in the heat of the moment that he was to blame for her illness. - And then your father told me that you were very excited about the wedding, - Guy laughs coldly, belatedly, at the deception, - and in my foolishness I thought that maybe you cared enough about me to want to marry me anyway. – He looks away, trying to hold on to the remnants of his composure, knowing that he has shown too much already, that he has laid himself bare to this ruthless woman again. He wonders grimly at how easily she has managed to drag him back to life after he has all but believed himself dead, and at how much it hurts to feel alive again, as if every fibre of his being were aching as it thawed from an icy grave.

- Maybe I _would_ have wanted to, - she mutters, - if you had not been such a bully at the wedding.

- So you had to make a public mockery of me for being a bully? – he counters bitterly, the humiliation still making his cheeks burn. Mercifully, he has managed not to mention the whole broken heart business.

- Even if I was being harsh, - she says pointedly, and he can tell that she is about to kick him down again, - it does not justify burning my father's home.

- I gave it back to you! – he almost screams, his fury born in equal measure from the long months of self-loathing that followed the fire and from the frustration that nothing he could do would ever satisfy the woman. – As soon as I could, I gave you the estate and the money to rebuild. What do you want me to do, give it back to you again every month? It will never change the fact that I destroyed it in the first place. But if that is what you want to know me by, Marian, then why the hell did you come here?! – he never meantto say it like this, but the wretched past is tearing him apart.

She is instantly, profoundly ashamed of herself. Why did she have to bring up the matter of Knighton Hall? By now Guy has more than made up for his crime, and she is surprised at her own mention of it. It is not even about the house, she realises, and not about the false king; but about broken trust. Until it happened, until Guy had lured her into the wedding and until he had left her and her father homeless and helpless in his fit of fury, she had trusted him despite his cruelty and anger. True, he had frightened her once before when she had a narrow escape in the silver necklace incident; but she still thought, rightly or wrongly, that he would have relented on her even if she were exposed as Robin's accomplice – after all, there was ample evidence of that in the months that followed and she survived. Then again, that incident was a betrayal of trust on _both_ sides, prompted by her exposing his plans to Robin. As was the wedding, with Marian breaking into Guy's house to rob him mere days before. It has always been about trust, and they have both been careless with it. Yet it is Guy who made amends in the end.

She does not want to fight him anymore; she wants desperately to trust him again – and even more desperately, she wants him to trust _her_. If so, she has made a rotten start. But as she turns away so that she can cope with her remorse without being scrutinised, she notices him moving as if to stop her, as if he were afraid that she will go away, and even though he quickly checks himself, it gives her resolve. Ignoring the tears stinging in her eyes and the searing pain in her throat, she turns back to face him and says, as steadily as she can, talking with her eyes closed, for the woman who has defeated a prince still lacks the courage to cry openly in this man's presence:

- Guy, I am sorry for what I said. It was wrong. - _It is all wrong_. – I did not come here to fight. For that matter, I did not come here to gloat either, or to pity you, or to thank you, though I could never thank you enough, - she is surprised when he does not interrupt her, - I came here because I really missed you...

She wants to say more, but as she stands there, her eyes squeezed shut and her voice faltering, she is suddenly aware of him standing next to her, his arms around her, and she stops fighting the tears as she buries her face in his chest.

She thinks that she is finally home again. The place does not matter, she thinks, it could be Nottingham, or Knighton, or anywhere. So long as she is next to this most unlikely of lovers, she is home.

Guy's world has just turned upside down, and even as he tells himself that this is a momentary lapse, an inexplicable delusion that has overcome him, or her, or both, and he expects it to shatter any moment, he still holds her in the gathering dusk, his lips pressed against the top of her head, and prays that whatever new deception this may be, it lasts just a little longer.

*

It could be hours later. It could be days, or lifetimes. Neither one wants the embrace to stop, but the sun has set and a cold breeze is starting from the sea, and Marian shivers in her thin dress and Guy tightens his arms around her for a moment before pulling away and motioning her indoors.

- Come inside, you are going to freeze out here.

- Wait, - she remembers, - there is something I need to show you.

She leads him to her carriage at the front of the manor. She asked the coachman to wait – after all, she had to consider the possibility that Guy could order her to leave altogether – now she can finally tell him to unharness the horses, and Guy tells the two guards that Hubert Walter has graciously sent along with her that they are free to get supper in the kitchen and spend the night at the servants' quarters before heading back to London. But before they leave, Marian asks them to help get something out of the carriage – her things, he assumes before seeing the men pull not one but two chests out, clearly straining under the weight of the bigger one. The chests are brought inside, the guards leave, and when they are alone in the dimly lit hall Marian produces a key from a chain around her neck and triumphantly opens the lid of the bigger chest. It is full of gold, and Guy stares at the glittering bounty, hoping to high heaven that Marian is not going to boast to him about having just robbed England's treasury.

The truth, if nowhere near as infuriating, is no less amazing.

- This is yours, - she says, and he cannot understand why she sounds so pleased until she continues. – This is my ransom money that you gave John. I got it back. Well, he has spent a few hundred, but the rest is all here.

- Why? – is all he can manage.

- He is a traitor and a thief who stole it from you. I was not going to let him keep it.

- I thought you robbed the rich to give to the poor, - he mutters, still incredulous.

- I always did what I thought was right in fighting injustice, - she argues. – and in this case, the injustice was John extorting this money from you. Now, it would make me a happy woman to see some of it going to the poor, - she continues with a mischievously wry smile, - but it is yours to dispose of as you wish.

Guy is too confused to thank her, though in her excitement she does not notice. He is still shocked, and grateful, but her words have delivered an unexpected sting that is poisoning his contentment at having his wealth restored to him. _Fighting injustice_, she said. That's what it is, all that this is to her. Settling scores. With John, and with him, making sure she owes him nothing and having a nice little conversation before she saunters off to France or wherever it is she is going away to. And he, the fool, has allowed himself to believe that she truly missed him!

- I am most profoundly grateful to you, Marian, - he finally says, and despite his polite language, or perhaps because of it, she suspects that something is wrong, though she cannot fathom what. – You needn't have gone to so much trouble...

- What are you talking about, Guy? – she puts a hand on his arm, and is at least glad that he does not shake it off. – if it were not for you I would not be here now. I would not be alive, or at least sane, to see this day. It was the least I could do.

- I did not expect anything in return, Marian, - he says, his voice quieter and softer than a moment before. - I may be a vile killer but I could not live in the knowledge that you were in mortal danger and do nothing about it... whatever else I may have done in this life.

- I know, - she replies in a half-whisper. _I should have known you better, too, but heaven be my witness, you made it difficult. – _I tried to get your Sheriff's post back as well, but even with the threat of the letter, there was too much else at stake for John to be able to unravel that arrangement.

- Never mind that, - he chuckles. – I have been Sheriff for a year and a half and just about had enough of presiding at courts and councils and accounting for taxes.

He realises as he says it that there is more truth in his words than he previously cared to admit. Vasey, with his mad thirst for wielding power and inflicting pain, was so in love with his post as to fan the flames of Guy's illusions that greater power was an end in itself. But something else in Marian's words belatedly gets his attention.

- Letter? What letter?

She smiles, and though it is the same sort of cunning smile that he had once eagerly awaited as a shadow of a promise and later resented as a false lure, now he surprisingly finds it amusing, almost infectious. This time, he guesses, she will let him in on the secret, and for once he guesses right.

She steps closer as she lowers her voice in a parody of a conspiracy.

- I will tell you all about it over supper, I swear. But I need a bath first.

And even though Guy curses himself for being a rotten host as he hears it, even though he is still suspicious about her intentions, and expects some sort of trouble to start soon, he smirks back.

*

- You did _what_?! – Guy's voice is somewhere between a shocked whisper and an outraged growl as he stares at Marian across the table, having just heard how she had to crawl along a narrow ledge to get into Taisson's chamber. – Marian, were you out of your mind? This was downright... – he searches for a polite way to say it.

- Stupid, - she finishes. – I know. - _Besides, I never thought through my escape route._

- You must swear to never, ever even think of doing anything of the sort again, - he continues hotly, forgetting for the moment that most of her previous promises counted for nothing.

- I have had my fill of being reckless, Guy, - she replies apologetically. She cannot whole-heartedly promise to never do anything of the sort, especially not to think of doing it, but she resolves to think twice before doing anything rash.

Her reassurance is met with a sigh and a wry smile.

- I damn well hope so. Or else... someone... had better lock you up again.

He listens in silence as she tells him what followed; he knows that part anyway, that she killed John's courier and was sent to the dungeon for that ostensible reason. But he looks impressed at her quick thinking with flinging the scrolls into the fire and hiding the valuable ones in the bed canopy - and downright disgusted when he hears about the contents of the letters.

- What a snake, - he spits. –To think that he begged for Richard's mercy and received his pardon and still keeps plotting to kill him... I probably should not be talking of such things, but that is beyond the pale. His brother is irresponsible, but of the two of them, John is the truly revolting one. I did not see it until I met him... makes me hope that Richard has a long reign, - he smirks.

- I know, - Marian says again, - but I fear he is too reckless for that.

She has started to suspect it; Guy may have failed in one assassination attempt and she may have helped foil another, but those are just the two she knows about, and in all likelihood, by no means the only ones. Richard's arrogant recklessness that goes hand in hand with his bravery is well-known, and between John, Philippe Auguste, Leopold, and countless others he has either openly offended or disappointed in their ambitions, there will always be someone wanting him imprisoned or dead. One can only wish that he has the prudence to protect himself, but it may be a vain hope.

- Then we'd better pray that the throne goes to young Arthur and not to that weasel, - Guy mutters. – John should not be trusted to rule unless there are better men around to keep him in check.

- There _may_ be better men around, - Marian counters, surprised at how they have managed to say more than a dozen words about politics without arguing. The truth is, she knows, that until now every political discussion stumbled upon the subject of Robin, after which there would be no reasoning, just flinging accusations back and forth. - If Hubert Walter were to retain a high office in John's reign, - she continues, - he would know everything about ruling England. And I have seen him with John; the prince may fume all he wants at Walter's opposition to him, but he fears and respects Walter for his intelligence, and I suspect he would love to have the man on his side.

- You saw them together? When? – Guy realises belatedly that he has only heard the part of Marian's adventures that got her into the dungeon.

- I have not finished my story, - she smiles and proceeds with the rest of her incredible tale, of stealing back the letters and getting the Chief Justiciar's ear in London and getting John to do her bidding back at Windsor, including the part about the dozen hides in Leicestershire that she bullied the prince into granting – and to crown it all, triumphantly produces the deed to Huncote.

Guy is impressed and makes no effort to hide it.

- Leaving aside your complete disregard for danger, - he shakes his head, - you are better at political negotiations than any man I have seen. Probably as good as the Chief Justiciar, though a lot less prudent, - he chuckles.

- I was not a Sheriff's daughter for nothing, - she smiles back.

- My lord, would you like some more... Oh, forgive me - the maid pokes her head in and retreats as she sees that neither her master nor the lady have touched their food yet.

They have forgotten about the supper, and now finally divert their attention to it. It is a simple meal, but one made better by fresh cider, and as the pitcher empties, the two find themselves forgetting about letters and kings and elaborate blackmail and discussing horses and harvests and even poetry instead, and Marian wonders how they never talked like this before. She wishes they would stay up all night, but she looks more tired than she feels, and when the maid comes back to take the plates away, Guy orders the girl to make the bed in the spare chamber where the fire has been lit.

- I hate to cut short such a pleasant evening, - he turns to Marian, - but I know you need rest after your journey.

She lets him lead her upstairs. He suddenly feels self-conscious next to her, graceful and sophisticated in her silks, despite having done his best to scrub himself down with cold water and throw on clean clothes while she was taking her bath. But he is still wearing nothing better than an old leather vest and tunic - he was about to put on his fancy jerkin but changed his mind as it reminded him of their last meeting, and now, he thinks, he looks like a peasant next to a princess.

They pause outside the door; Guy kisses her hand, and she blushes, not because of his gesture but because she catches herself longing for a different sort of kiss – and other things besides. Still, she calmly bids him good night, but the moment the maid is gone and the candle is extinguished, she sits up in bed and pounds the mattress with her fist, all traces of sleep gone from her mind. Who would have ever thought that between her and Guy, she would end up being the frustrated one?

*

The fire is almost out, and Guy, propped on the cushions piled up against the headboard, listens to the wind outside, despairing of getting any sleep. He should have known the moment Marian showed up that would be no more peace in his mind. He is tempted to go downstairs and make use of the wine barrel stowed in the kitchen to drink himself into oblivion, but knows that he will do no such thing as it will turn him into a miserable hungover mess to be pitied and despised by Marian in the morning.

_If she is still __here, that is_.

She seemed happy enough to stay and happy enough to talk to him over supper, but he cannot get rid of the gnawing doubts. Her words about fighting injustice have made him suspect that restoring the monetary part of her ransom has been the true reason for her visit, and her avoidance of the subject of Robin of Locksley – not that Guy is complaining – makes him wonder if she is bitter at Robin for not having married her yet, or is merely sparing Guy's feelings by not telling him that everything is still perfect between them. Surely she would not have changed her mind about the brat. But now that he has seen her, heard her, held her, Guy cannot bear to think about letting her go yet again, and he laughs bitterly at himself for wishing that her chamber door would bolt on the outside so he could lock her up and go to sleep in the knowledge that she will still be there when he wakes up. _No use; she will climb out of the window, and knock me out if I keep watch under it._

He hears a tap at the door and says "come in" before it occurs to him that the servants must be in bed by now. Moments later, he is staring dumbfounded at Marian, looking like a ghost in a white nightgown, pausing to let her eyes seek him out in the near darkness before closing the door and stepping inside. This cannot be happening; he wants to ask her if she is real, but the faculty of speech has completely left him.

Marian – she must be real, for the floorboards creak slightly under her feet as she steps closer – walks up to the side of the bed and sits sideways on the edge of the mattress, facing him. She does not say anything either, and he finally finds the strength to address her.

- You could not sleep either, I see.

He does not know what else to say, does not know if they are supposed to be playing by the rules, or if there are no more rules after all that has happened, or at least if the rules are suspended for now, while they are alone in the dark room. He tries to remind himself that she is another man's woman – not just another man's but Locksley's, and he once bitterly promised to himself to never touch her after she chose Locksley over him, but all that fades away when she is sitting so close that he can almost feel the warmth of her body.

- I need to tell you something, Guy, - her voice is a mere whisper. – I could not sleep unless I did.

This is only partly true; she has tossed and turned in bed for a while and tried staring out the window and even tried praying, only to become more and more awake, mostly because she was too painfully aware that Guy was in the room across the hall from her, seemingly quite pleased with life while she was desperate to be next to him. She scolded herself for her impatience but eventually decided that he must still distrust her, and that must be giving him pause, and remembered that she had never carried out her old intention, born ages ago when she came to look for him in vain in Nottingham, to apologise for her old lies. The fact that it gave her a pretext to come into Guy's chamber was an added benefit.

- What is it? – he asks in a broken voice.

_This is it_, he thinks, _now she will tell me about her impending wedding, or her imminent voyage to join Locksley, or apologise about having misled me by having been too friendly this evening_.

- Guy, I wanted to apologise...

- Don't, - he almost snaps, as his fears take shape on her tongue. – I know what you are going to say, Marian, and you need not say it. You are going to tell me that you are off to France, or else... – he cannot bring himself to enumerate the possibilities. – I know.

She throws him an indignant look before turning sharply away from him, her shrill retort seemingly addressed to the fireplace.

- I am not going to France! If I wanted to go to France I would damn well be there already! I am sitting here instead. What more can I do to prove that I am not going?

He suddenly understands that they both know exactly what "France" stands for, and that she is answering his unspoken question with this rebuke, and for a moment he is too stunned to react but can only listen as she continues, her voice low at first but getting more urgent as she goes on.

- I wanted to apologise for lying to you, Guy. All those times before I... ran away... while I lived in the castle, and before then, when I was the Nightwatchman and when I covered up for Robin and his men and helped them... I _wanted_ to help them, and I had to stop Vasey, and most of the time it meant stopping _you_, and sometimes I... enjoyed it... as if it were a fight, or a contest... but most of the time I was ashamed of it. And it made me resent you then because I hated lying to you but I saw no choice, and I wished I could stop caring about you but I could not help... liking you... still. – These last three words are once again uttered at a near-whisper.

Her face is burning; she does not know how she has managed to blurt it out. She has said too much in her tumult of emotions, and knowing their luck in misreading each other, she will not be surprised if Guy violently pushes her away or coldly orders her to leave, and she sits slumped dejectedly on the edge of the bed wondering which it will be... until she feels his hands, feather-light, touch her shoulders and slip down her arms, pulling her back against his chest, and she sinks against him, her sigh of relief turning to a shudder of pleasure as he kisses her neck.

- I liked you too, - she hears him murmuring in her ear, - in case you did not notice.

* * *

She laughs and he keeps kissing her neck and licking at the inside of her ears as his hands slide to her breasts, the long nimble fingers squeezing them softly before focusing on her nipples, tracing little circles around the hardening points through the fabric until she shivers and gasps under his touch. She wants to reciprocate and turns toward him, but he gently pulls her hands away from his body as he continues kissing her, and at first she wants to insist on being a more active party, but soon she is too caught up in enjoying his attentions and gives in completely to his will.

This is much more than he has ever allowed himself with Marian, and somewhat less than Robin has allowed himself, but nothing either one had done before made her feel this way. True, Guy's kisses had left her dizzy and breathless and wanting more, but she always ended up extricating herself, afraid of his urgent passion and angry at herself for being so carried away; meanwhile with Robin, her feelings ran the range from mildly excited to intensely awkward, knowing that his caresses were supposed to arouse her and feeling inadequate because they did not. It was strange, given that they were in love and attached to each other, and she told herself that it was lack of habit and practice on her part – and yet she found herself reluctant to engage in such practice. But now, as she succumbs to this exquisite torture of intense pleasure dealt to her in tantalising little morsels and her mind is unable to focus on anything besides her lover's touch, she knows that practice has nothing to do with it. And with what ability to think is still left to her, she wonders at his slow, measured caresses, light and careful, the intensity belied only by his eyes burning into hers when she looks at him. Part of her apprehension before had always come from the fear that Guy would be forceful and selfish and downright brutal about possessing her, ravishing her body with little regard to what she might be feeling; and while she now knows Guy to be a man vastly different from the image she once held, she is still surprised at how gentle he is with her.

For a while he continues stroking her through the fabric, watching her greedily, hungrily, relishing the most minute details of her reaction. He was slightly hesitant at first but was moved to comfort her when he heard her distressed declaration of affection, yet as time goes on he cannot help his growing excitement. She might have been Hood's woman but he can still sense her inexperience, the surprise in her reaction, and is darkly delighted that Hood must have never made her feel like this, and is determined to erase his rival from her skin and from her mind with every careful, deliberate touch, before his own mind gives up thought and he, too, is lost in the sensation. Unable to resist the temptation to see her, he pulls up her nightgown and casts it aside, and she gasps in blissful abandon as his fingers, light as a whisper, play delicately on her bare skin, and she moans out loud as he starts tracing patterns on her body with his tongue. But when he dips down to her stomach she is seized with apprehension, hoping that he manages not to notice the scar in her side – and her flash of panic gives it away.

He stares at it, a pale crescent of puckered tissue, almost gone but still visible against the smooth white skin around it, and then he sits up, away from her. When she sees him, eyes closed, straight and still and palpably in pain, she sits up next to him and throws her arms around his neck, her lips brushing against the dented skin on his cheekbone where she cut him with the wedding ring, as she speaks.

- It is all right, - she whispers, - it is all in the past.

- I have committed too many wrongs, - his voice is quiet in resignation. – I can never make up for it. I can never be... _good enough for you_, - he cannot muster the strength to finish.

- Forget it, - she says insistently, desperately searching for words that would distract and dissuade him. – do not take all the blame yourself. I have been no angel either. We have both hurt each other, - she kisses the scar on his cheek, - and none of it matters so long as we can forgive each other, none of this matters. All that matters is that we are here. You may tease me all you want about France but the truth is, I want to stay with you. I will never forget... Robin... but I have spent many days lately without thinking about him once. And in these two years since I ran away from you I could not get you off my mind for a single day. Sometimes I was just angry at you, but one way or another I would keep thinking about you. And when I was back from Windsor and came to Nottingham hoping to see you, not knowing that you had saved me, and you were not there... it hurt so much that I knew for certain, at that moment, that I loved you. I may have loved you before but I definitely knew it then.

He stays still and quiet and she stays there holding him, and her heart breaks as her lips brush against his cheek again to find it wet, and she tastes salt on her tongue.

– I can hardly remember a time when I did not love you, - he says, and knows it to be true. In all the dreary months that they spent apart, when he told himself that he would never see her, that he ought to hate her, despise her, forget her, it was always true nonetheless. – I suppose I never stopped.

As she turns her face aside to brush away her own tears, Marian wonders distantly how an almost-reluctant confession of love from a murdering villain she twice rejected can make her the happiest creature alive.

*

He does not hold her back anymore and she wants to know what she can do for him - and is embarrassed by her relative inexperience. Surely, there were things she did at Robin's request; but she has no way of knowing if that was merely something _Robin_ liked and Guy might be indifferent to or angered by, and for a while she just runs her hands over his body, the feel of smooth skin under her fingers making her spine tingle. _Damn, I do need more practice, _she sighs inwardly, _if only to know tow to return the favours so generously given_. Still, before long she is once again lost in her senses, her eyes closed even though she still feels him watching her and tries not to think of what exactly she must look like, naked and wanton, offering up and opening up her body for his caress. She is surprised, therefore, when a sharp stab of pain shoots up between her legs when he slides a finger inside her and makes her give out a sharp moan – but not nearly as surprised as he is.

Guy stops abruptly, his eyes wide, his mind trying to absorb the meaning.

- Marian, I am… sorry, - he manages, - I did not know, I thought that…

- What? – she snaps, though her peevishness might have something to do with the fact that he has stopped caressing her.

- I thought you… – he sounds less worried and almost relieved now. He does not dare finish the sentence, but both know what he meant to say.

– I told you I was not married, - she protests angrily, - and I was not going to do anything of this sort unless I was certain of the marriage taking place.

This is her final concession to Robin, explaining her virginity _thus_ and not admitting that she actually had not _wanted_ to be intimate with him badly enough. She is slightly embarrassed when she realises that her remark could be seen as her cornering Guy into marrying her, and hopes that he is not angry with her for trying to trick him again, but whatever can be made of his reaction, _angry_ does not even remotely describe it.

He goes perfectly still, but she can feel his whole body trembling.

- Does that mean that… that you would… - he stops mid-sentence, out of breath.

– It means that if you are thinking of proposing marriage, Guy of Gisborne, my answer is yes.

He stays still for another instant but then takes her face in his hands and kisses her at last, and she kisses him back, and the pent-up longing on both sides is so powerful and desperate that she is afraid that her heart will stop. _I never thought such passion were possible in this life_, flashes through her mind.

- By the way, - she whispers when she can speak again, taking his wrist and placing his hand on the inside of her hip, - I did not tell you to stop.

She moans again as his hand slips back between her legs, and he asks her if it hurts and she says _no_ even though in reality it feels somewhat uncomfortable, but the overwhelming pleasure is too great to stop her from wanting more; soon her blood turns to fire and her skin tingles and she opens her eyes wide and stares at him because the sensation is so intense that she must share it.

- This is… so good, - she gasps between fast, shallow breathing.

- It can be better, - he teases and flashes her a dangerous, wolfish smile, and before she can ask what he means he moves over and pulls up one of her legs at the knee and dips his head between her hips and she gasps, her own head tipping back while his tongue slides against her flesh, teasing and exploring, and then thrusts inside her, gently at first but getting more insistent as she moans and thrashes on the bed and wonders if she will spend the rest of her days after this in a lunatic asylum because her brain is about to melt away.

- Guy – I cannot – this is too good,– she manages before time stops and her heart skips a few beats and she convulses with a shuddering scream and lies perfectly still, unable to move or speak and barely able to breathe while Guy sits beside her on the bed, watching her.

When she finally moves, it is to put her hand on his arm and pull him up to her, and she turns to him, her eyes fixed upon his face, thinking that she has never seen him so radiantly happy. _You will be the death of me yet_, she thinks, still incredulous at the intensity of the feeling he is able to provoke in her – and knowing that she will never want to let him go again.

But she is also aware of his unselfishness, knowing that he let her take her pleasure while he himself was content to merely watch her reaction, and she is desperate for a way to drive him to the same impossible ecstasy; yet when she asks what he would like her to do, he shakes his head.

Still, she has made up her mind.

- Guy, – she calls out to him, - I… really want you to… I want to do it with you.

He meaning is clear, but Guy does not look convinced, and does nothing to take advantage of the offer.

- Marian, are you sure – about the marriage, I mean? – he asks instead, and she knows that he is still offering her a way out, and her throat aches and her eyes burn at the thought of the heartbreak he is offering to endure for her sake - and she grabs him and presses her mouth hard against his before whispering in a stranger's husky voice:

– I absolutely insist.

He starts kissing her again, and she feels as if she were falling through thin air, weightless and light-headed and excited; once again his attentions are slow and deliberate; however, his eyes are no longer narrow with smouldering hunger but shining with passion and naked tenderness. She does her best to hide her slight nervousness; she is determined to go through with it and hopes that she can handle the pain and not ruin the moment for both of them.

But Guy is too excited to notice – and too terrified. He is carried away by lust and the promise of bliss held by her beautiful body, but underneath it runs a quiet dread that Marian will change her mind and try to push him away, and his fear is multiplied tenfold at the thought that by now he may be unable to stop himself from taking her, thus shattering this blessed delirium with a single gesture of violence. He has been with many women, both noble and simple, but he never felt so nervous, either in his or the women's first experience. At the last moment he crumbles and desperately pleads with her not to resist and to try and relax instead, even though she is not resisting at all.

When the jolt of pain tears through her, she gasps and whimpers but quickly bites her lip and even tries to smile, and is quick to reassure Guy in response to his anxious query, and is vaguely surprised at how relieved he suddenly looks, but despite her reassurances he is excruciatingly slow and careful when he next moves inside her. In a while the pain starts wearing off but Marian does not resent it; it is a reminder of the significance of the moment. The pain makes it real and seals the pact between them with blood and tears and love in an ultimate act of trust, and even though she knows that they will probably quarrel more than once in the days ahead, she also knows that so long as they have this trust they can never hurt each other beyond hope. For a while she is too distracted by these revelations, but when her reverie finally fades, all that is left of the initial sharp sting is a nagging soreness, and Guy feels her sliding against him, trying to match his movement, and stops worrying and gives free rein to his passion, and while Marian cannot quite reach the ecstatic heights of pleasure she felt earlier, she is no less gratified to watch that sublime ecstasy blossom on her lover's face. When he slumps against her and rests his head on her shoulder and drifts off to sleep as her fingers run through his hair, Marian is struck by how sweet and gorgeous and contented and almost helpless he looks, and she feels tears roll down her cheeks as the love floods her heart and spills over.

*

They must have shifted in their sleep, for when she awakens her head is on Guy's chest, his arm around her shoulders, and as she looks up at him her hair tickles his skin and he wakes up. For a few moments he looks at her in silent incomprehension until it dawns on him that last night was not a delirious dream.

- You are real, - his words sound like a prayer. – And you are still here. – he smiles blissfully down at her.

She smiles back at him before pressing her lips against his skin.

- I _am_ real, and after what you did last night you would have to chase me away to be rid of me, - she laughs as she stretches lazily against him and runs her hand down his body. – And then I would probably come back anyway.

- Impossible woman, - he smirks as he pulls her close. – Please tell me you locked the door when you came in...

***

_fin_


End file.
